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THE 

WORKS   OF   CHARLES   KINGSLEY. 

VOLUME   XVII. 

HISTORICAL   LECTURES 

AND 

ESSAYS. 


THE    WORKS 

OF 

CHARLES    KINGSLEY. 


VOLUME  XVII. 


HISTORICAL    LECTURES 

AND 

ESSAYS. 


MACMILLAN     AND     CO. 

1880. 


HISTORICAL    LECTURES 

AND 

ESSAYS, 


HISTORICAL    LECTURES 

AND 

ESSAYS. 


SV 


CHARLES     KINGSLEY. 


X, 


CALll'"**''^'-'' 


/'' 


/■ 


^fritlixrn : 

MACMILLAN    AND     CO. 

1880. 


CHARLES  DICKEKS  AND   EVANS, 
CRYSTAL   PALACE  PRESS. 


OONTEISTTS. 


ALEXAi^DEIA  AND   HEE   SCHOOLS. 

(Four  Lectures  delivered  at  the  Philosophical  Institution,  Edinburgh.) 

Our  little  systems  have  their  day ; 

They  have  their  day  and  cease  to  be ; 

They  are  but  broken  lights  of  Thee, 
And  Thou,  O  Lord,  art  more  than  they.— Tennj/son. 

PiLGB 
PREFACE  3 

LECTURE   I. — THE   PTOLEMAIC   ERA 14 

„         II. — THE  PTOLEMAIC  ERA  (continued)             ...  40 

„        III. — NEOPLATONISM 69 

„         IV. — THE   CROSS  AND   THE   CRESCENT             .           ,           .  103 

THE  ANCIEN  REGIME. 

(Three  Lectures  delivered  at  the  Royal  Institution.) 

PREFACE .  .      135 

LECTURE   I. — CASTE 148 

„  II. — CENTRALISATION 172 

„        III. — THE   EXPLOSIVE   FORCES 202 

A    2 


X  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

THE  FIRST  DISCOVERY  OF  AMERICA  ....  237 
CYRUS,  SERVANT  OF  THE  LORD  .....  266 
ANCIENT   CIVILISATION      .         .         .         .        .         .        .289 

RONDELET 313 

VESALIUS 337 

PARACELSUS .361 

BUCHANAN 379 


HISTORICAL   LECTURES 

AND 

ESSAYS. 


ALEXANDRIA   AND    HER   SCHOOLS. 


VOL.  I. — H.  E. 


i\ 


^^l-L' 


ALEXANDRIA  AND  HER  SCHOOLS/ 


PREFACE. 


I  SHOULD  not  have  presumed  to  choose  for  any  lectures 
of  mine  such  a  subject  as  that  which  I  have  tried  to 
treat  in  this  book.  The  subject  was  chosen  for  me 
by  the  Institution  where  the  lectures  were  delivered. 
Still  less  should  I  have  presumed  to  print  them  of  my 
own  accord,  knowing  how  fragmentary  and  crude 
they  are.  They  were  printed  at  the  special  request 
of  my  audience.  Least  of  all,  perhaps,  ought  I  to 
have  presumed  to  publish  them,  as  I  have  done,  at 
Cambridge,  where  any  inaccuracy  or  sciolism  (and 
that  such  defects  exist  in  these  pages,  I  cannot  but 
fear)  would  be  instantly  detected,  and  severely 
censured:  but  nevertheless,  it  seemed  to  me  that 
Cambridge  was  the  fittest  place  in  which  they  could 
see  the  light,  because  to  Cambridge  I  mainly  owe 
what  little  right  method  or  sound  thought  may  be 
found  in  them,  or  indeed,  in  anything  which  I  have 
ever  written.  In  the  heyday  of  youthful  greediness 
and  ambition,  when  the  mind,  dazzled  by  the  vast- 
ness  and  variety  of  the  universe,  must  needs  know 

*  These  Lectures  were  delivered  at  the  Philosophical  Institution, 
Edinburgh,  in  February,  1854;,  at  the  commencement  of  the  Crimean 
War. 

B  2 


4  ALEXANDEIA  AND   HER  SCHOOLS. 

every  tiling,  or  rather  know  about  everything,  at 
once  and  on  the  spot,  too  many  are  apt,  as  I  have 
been  in  past  years,  to  complain  of  Cambridge  studies 
as  too  dry  and  narrow :  but  as  time  teaches  the 
student,  year  by  year,  what  is  really  required  for  an 
understanding  of  the  objects  with  which  he  meets, 
he  begins  to  find  that  his  University,  in  as  far  as  he 
has  really  received  her  teaching  into  himself,  has 
given  him,  in  her  criticism,  her  mathematics,  above 
all,  in  Plato,  something  which  all  the  popular  know- 
ledge, the  lectures  and  institutions  of  the  day,  and 
even  good  books  themselves,  cannot  give,  a  boon 
more  precious  than  learning;  namely,  the  art  of 
learning.  That  instead  of  casting  into  his  lazy  lap 
treasures  which  he  would  not  have  known  how  to 
use,  she  has  taught  him  to  mine  for  them  himself ; 
and  has  by  her  wise  refusal  to  gratify  his  intellectual 
greediness,  excited  his  hunger,  only  that  he  may  be 
the  stronger  to  hunt  and  till  for  his  own  subsistence  ; 
and  thus,  the  deeper  he  drinks,  in  after  years,  at 
fountains  wisely  forbidden  to  him  while  he  was  a 
Cambridge  student,  and  sees  his  old  companions 
growing  up  into  sound-headed  and  sound-hearted 
practical  men,  liberal  and  expansive,  and  yet  with  a 
firm  standing-ground  for  thought  and  action,  he  learns 
to  complain  less  and  less  of  Cambridge  studies,  and 
more  and  more  of  that  conceit  and  haste  of  his  own, 
which  kept  him  from  reaping  the  full  advantage  of 
her  training. 

These  Lectures,  as  I  have  said,  are  altogether 
crude  and  fragmentary — how,  indeed,  could  they  be 
otherwise,  dealing  with  so  vast  a  subject,  and  so  long 
a  period  of  time  ?  They  are  meant  neither  as  Essays 
nor  as  Orations,  but  simply  as  a  collection  of  hints  to 


PEEFACE.  5 

those  who  may  wish  to  work  out  the  subject  for 
themselves ;  and^  I  trusty  as  giving  some  glimpses  of 
a  central  idea^  in  the  light  of  which  the  spiritual 
history  of  Alexandria^  and  perhaps  of  other  countries 
also,  may  be  seen  to  have  in  itself  a  coherence  and 
organic  method. 

I  was  of  course  compelled,  by  the  circumstances 
under  which  these  Lectures  were  delivered,  to  keep 
clear  of  all  points  which  are  commonly  called  ^^  contro- 
versial/^ I  cannot  but  feel  that  this  was  a  gain, 
rather  than  a  loss ;  because  it  forced  me,  if  I  wished 
to  give  any  interpretation  at  all  of  Alexandrian 
thought,  any  Theodicy  at  all  of  her  fate,  to  refer  to 
laws  which  I  cannot  but  believe  to  be  deeper,  wider, 
more  truly  eternal  than  the  points  which  cause  most 
of  our  modern  controversies,  either  theological  or 
political;  laws  which  will,  I  cannot  but  believe  also, 
reassert  themselves,  and  have  to  be  reasserted  by  all 
wise  teachers,  very  soon  indeed,  and  it  may  be  under 
most  novel  embodiments,  but  without  any  change  in 
their  eternal  spirit. 

For  J  may  say,  I  hope,  now  (what  if  said  ten  years 
ago  would  have  only  excited  laughter),  that  I  cannot 
but  subscribe  to  the  opinion  of  the  many  wise  men 
who  believe  that  Europe,  and  England  as  an  integral 
part  thereof,  is  on  the  eve  of  a  revolution,  spiritual 
and  political,  as  vast  and  awful  as  that  which  took 
place  at  the  Reformation ;  and  that,  beneficial  as  that 
revolution  will  doubtless  be  to  the  destinies  of  man- 
kind in  general,  it  depends  upon  the  wisdom  and 
courage  of  each  nation  individually,  whether  that 
great  deluge  shall  issue,  as  the  Reformation  did,  in  a 
fresh  outgrowth  of  European  nobleness  and  strength, 
or  usher  in,  after  pitiable  confusions  and  sorrows,  a 


6  ALEXANDRIA  AND  HER  SCHOOLS. 

second  Byzantine  age  of  stereotyped  effeminacy  and 
imbecility.  For  I  have  as  little  sympathy  with  those 
who  prate  so  loudly  of  the  progress  of  the  species^  and 
the  advent  of  I  know-not-what  Cockaigne  of  universal 
peace  and  plenty,  as  I  have  with  those  who  believe  on 
the  strength  of  ^''unfulfilled  prophecy/^  the  downfall 
of  Christianity,  and  the  end  of  the  human  race  to  be 
at  hand.  Nevertheless,  one  may  well  believe  that 
prophecy  will  be  fulfilled  in  this  great  crisis,  as  it  is 
in  every  great  crisis,  although  one  be  unable  to 
conceive  by  what  method  of  symbolism  the  drying  up 
of  the  Euphrates  can  be  twisted  to  signify  the  fall  of 
Constantinople :  and  one  can  well  believe  that  a  day 
of  judgment  is  at  hand,  in  which  for  every  nation  and 
institution,  the  wheat  will  be  sifted  out  and  gathered 
into  God^s  garner,  for  the  use  of  future  generations, 
and  the  chaff  burnt  up  with  that  fire  unquenchable 
which  will  try  every  man^s  work,  without  being  of 
opinion  that  after  a  few  more  years  are  over,  the 
great  majority  of  the  human  race  will  be  consigned 
hopelessly  to  never-ending  torments. 

If  prophecy  be  indeed  a  divine  message  to  man ; 
if  it  be  anything  but  a  cabbala,  useless  either  to  the 
simple-minded  or  to  the  logical,  intended  only  for  the 
plaything  of  a  few  devout  fancies,  it  must  declare  the 
unchangeable  laws  by  which  the  unchangeable  God 
is  governing,  and  has  always  governed,  the  human 
race ;  and  therefore  only  by  understanding  what  has 
happened,  can  we  understand  what  will  happen; 
only  by  understanding  history,  can  we  understand 
prophecy ;  and  that  not  merely  by  picking  out — too 
often  arbitrarily  and  unfairly — a  few  names  and  dates 
from  the  records  of  all  the  ages,  but  by  trying  to 
discover  its  organic  laws,  and  the  causes  which  pro- 


PREFACE.  7 

duce  in  nations^  creeds^  and  systems,  liealtli  and 
disease,  growth,  change,  decay  and  death.  If,  in  one 
small  corner  of  this  vast  field,  I  shall  have  thrown  a 
single  ray  of  light  upon  these  subjects — if  I  shall  have 
done  anything  in  these  pages  towards  illustrating  the 
pathology  of  a  single  people,  I  shall  believe  that  I  have 
done  better  service  to  the  Catholic  Faith  and  the 
Scriptures,  than  if  I  did  really  ^^  know  the  times  and 
the  seasons,  which  the  Father  has  kept  in  His  own 
hand/^  For  by  the  former  act  I  may  have  helped  to 
make  some  one  man  more  prudent  and  brave  to  see 
and  to  do  what  God  requires  of  him ;  by  the  latter  I 
could  only  add  to  that  paralysis  of  superstitious  fear, 
which  is  already  but  too  common  among  us,  and  but 
too  likely  to  hinder  us  from  doing  our  duty  manfully 
against  our  real  foes,  whether  it  be  pestilence  at  home 
or  tyranny  abroad. 

These  last  words  lead  me  to  another  subject,  on 
which  I  am  bound  to  say  a  few  words.  I  have,  at  the 
end  of  these  Lectures,  made  some  allusion  to  the 
present  war.  To  have  entered  further  into  political 
questions  would  have  been  improper  in  the  place 
where  those  Lectures  were  delivered:  but  I  cannot 
refrain  from  saying  here  something  more  on  this 
matter ;  and  that,  first,  because  all  political  questions 
have  their  real  root  in  moral  and  spiritual  ones,  and 
not  (as  too  many  fancy)  in  questions  merely  relating 
to  the  balance  of  power  or  commercial  economy,  and 
are  (the  world  being  under  the  guidance  of  a  spiritual, 
and  not  a  physical  Being)  finally  decided  on  those 
spiritual  grounds,  and  according  to  the  just  laws  of 
the  kingdom  of  God^  and,  therefore,  the  future 
political  horoscope  of  the  East  depends  entirely  on  the 
present  spiritual  state  of  its  inhabitants,  and  of  us 


8  ALEXANDRIA  AND   HER   SCHOOLS. 

who  have  (and  rightly)  taken  up  their  cause ;  in  shorty 
on  many  of  those  questions  on  which  I  have  touched 
in  these  Lectures  :  and  next,  because  I  feel  bound,  in 
justice  to  myself,  to  guard  against  any  mistake  about 
my  meaning  or  supposition  that  I  consider  the  Turkish 
empire  a  righteous  thing,  or  one  likely  to  stand  much 
longer  on  the  face  of  God^s  earth. 

The  Turkish  empire,  as  it  now  exists,  seems  to  me 
an  altogether  unrighteous  and  worthless  thing.  It 
stands  no  longer  upon  the  assertion  of  the  great  truth 
of  Islam,  but  on  the  merest  brute  force  and  oppression. 
It  has  long  since  lost  the  only  excuse  which  one  race 
can  have  for  holding  another  in  subjection;  that 
which  we  have  for  taking  on  ourselves  the  tutelage 
of  the  Hindoos,  and  which  Eome  had  for  its  tutelage 
of  the  Syrians  and  Egyptians;  namely,  the  governing 
with  tolerable  justice  those  who  cannot  govern  them- 
selves, and  making  them  better  and  more  prosperous 
people,  by  compelling  them  to  submit  to  law.  I  do 
not  know  when  this  excuse  is  a  sufficient  one.  God 
showed  that  it  was  so  for  several  centuries  in  the  case 
of  the  Eomans;  God  will  show  whether  it  is  in  the 
case  of  our  Indian  empire:  but  this  I  say,  that  the 
Turkish  empire  has  not  even  that  excuse  to  plead ;  as 
is  proved  by  the  patent  fact  that  the  whole  East,  the 
very  garden  of  the  old  world,  has  become  a  desert 
and  a  ruin  under  the  upas-blight  of  their  government. 

As  for  the  regeneration  of  Turkey,  it  is  a  question 
whether  the  regeneration  of  any  nation  which  has 
sunk,  not  into  mere  valiant  savagery,  but  into  effete 
and  profligate  luxury,  is  possible.  Still  more  is  it  a 
question  whether  a  regeneration  can  be  effected,  not 
by  the  rise  of  a  new  spiritual  idea  (as  in  the  case  of 
the  Koreish),  but  simply  by  more   perfect   material 


PEEFACE.  9 

appliances^  and  commercial  prudence.  History  gives 
no  instance,  it  seems  to  me,  of  either  case ;  and  if  our 
attempt  to  regenerate  Greece  by  freeing  it  has  been 
an  utter  failure,  much  more,  it  seems  to  me,  would  any 
such  attempt  fail  in  the  case  of  the  Turkish  race. 
For  what  can  be  done  with  a  people  which  has  lost 
the  one  great  quality  which  was  the  tenure  of  its  ex- 
istence, its  military  skill  ?  Let  any  one  read  the 
accounts  of  the  Turkish  armies  in  the  fifteenth, 
sixteenth,  and  seventeenth  centuries,  when  they  were 
the  tutors  and  models  of  all  Europe  in  the  art  of  war, 
and  then  consider  the  fact  that  those  very  armies 
require  now  to  be  officered  by  foreign  adventurers, 
in  order  to  make  them  capable  of  even  keeping 
together,  and  let  him  ask  himself  seriously,  whether 
such  a  fall  can  ever  be  recovered.  When,  in  the  age 
of   Theodosius,  and  again  in   that   of  Justinian,  the 

Roman  armies  had  fallen  into  the  same  state :  when 

'  .  .  . 

the  Italian  legions  required  to  be  led  by  Stilicho  the 

Vandal,  and  the  Byzantine  by  Belisar  the  Sclav  and 

Narses  the  Persian,  the  end  of  all  things  was  at  hand, 

and  came ;  as  it  will  come  soon  to  Turkey. 

But  if  Turkey  deserves  to  fall,  and  must  fall,  it 

must  not  fall  by  our  treachery.     Its  sins  will  surely 

be  avenged  upon   it :  but   wrong   must   not    avenge 

wrong,  or  the  penalty   is    only  passed  on  from   one 

sinner   to    another.     Whatsoever  element  of  good  is 

left  in  the  Turk,  to  that  we  must  appeal  as  our  only 

means,  if  not  of  saving  him,  still  of  helping  him  to  a 

quiet  euthanasia,  and  absorption  into  a  worthier  race 

of  successors.     He  is  said  (I  know  not  how  truly)  to 

have  one  virtue  left ;  that  of  faithfulness  to  his  word. 

Only  by  showing  him  that  we  too  abhor  treachery 

and  bad  faith,  can  we  either  do  him  good,  or  take  a 


10  ALEXANDRIA  AND   HER   SCHOOLS. 

«afe  standing-ground  in  our  own  peril.  And  tliis  we 
have  done ;  and  for  this  we  shall  be  rewarded.  But 
this  is  surely  not  all  our  duty.  Even  if  we  should  be 
able  to  make  the  civil  and  religious  freedom  of  the 
Eastern  Christians  the  price  of  our  assistance  to  the 
Mussulman,  the  struggle  will  not  be  over ;  for  Russia 
"will  still  be  what  she  has  always  been^  and  the 
northern  Anarch  will  be  checked,  only  to  return  to 
the  contest  with  fiercer  lust  of  aggrandisement,  to 
•enact  the  part  of  a  new  Macedon,  against  a  new 
Greece,  divided,  not  united,  by  the  treacherous  bond 
of  that  balance  of  power,  which  is  but  war  under  the 
guise  of  peace.  Europe  needs  a  holier  and  more 
spiritual,  and  therefore  a  stronger  union,  than  can  be 
given  by  armed  neutralities,  and  the  so-called  cause  of 
order.  She  needs  such  a  bond  as  in  the  Elizabethan 
age  united  the  free  states  of  Europe  against  the 
Anarch  of  Spain,  and  delivered  the  Western  nations 
from  a  rising  world-tyranny,  which  promised  to  be 
even  more  hideous  than  the  elder  one  of  Rome.  If, 
as  then,  England  shall  proclaim  herself  the  champion 
of  freedom  by  acts,  and  not  by  words  and  paper,  she 
may,  as  she  did  then,  defy  the  rulers  of  the  darkness 
of  this  world,  for  the  God  of  Light  will  be  with  her. 
But,  as  yet,  it  is  impossible  to  look  without  sad  fore- 
bodings upon  the  destiny  of  a  war,  begun  upon  the 
express  understanding  that  evil  shall  be  left  trium- 
phant throughout  Europe,  wheresoever  that  evil  does 
not  seem,  to  our  own  selfish  shortsightedness,  to 
threaten  us  with  immediate  danger;  with  promises, 
that  under  the  hollow  name  of  the  Cause  of  Order — 
and  that  promise  made  by  a  revolutionary  Anarch — 
the  wrongs  of  Italy,  Hungary,  Poland,  Sweden,  shall 
remain  unredressed,  and  that  Prussia  and  Austria,  two 


PREFACE.  n 

tyrannies,  tlie  one  far  more  false  and  hypocritical,  the 
other  even  more  rotten  than  that  of  Turkey,  shall,  if 
they  will  but  observe  a  hollow  and  uncertain  neutrality 
(for  who  can  trust  the  liar  and  the  oppressor?) — ^be 
allowed  not  only  to  keep  their  ill-gotten  spoils,  but 
even  now  to  play  into  the  hands  of  our  foe,  by  guard- 
ing his  Polish  frontier  for  him,  and  keeping  down  the 
victims  of  his  cruelty,  under  pretence  of  keeping 
down  those  of  their  own. 

It  is  true,  the  alternative  is  an  awful  one;  one 
from  which  statesmen  and  nations  may  well  shrink : 
but  it  is  a  question,  whether  that  alternative  may  not 
be  forced  upon  us  sooner  or  later,  whether  we  must 
not  from  the  first  look  it  boldly  in  the  face,  as  that 
which  must  be  some  day,  and  for  which  we  must 
prepare,  not  cowardly,  and  with  cries  about  God^s 
wrath  and  judgments  against  us — which  would  be 
abject,  were  they  not  expressed  in  such  second-hand 
stock-phrases  as  to  make  one  altogether  doubt  their 
sincerity,  but  chivalrously,  and  with  awful  joy,  as  a 
noble  calling,  an  honour  put  upon  us  by  the  God  of 
Nations,  who  demands  of  us,  as  some  small  return  for 
all  His  free  bounties,  that  we  should  be,  in  this  great 
crisis,  the  champions  of  Freedom  and  of  Justice, 
which  are  the  cause  of  God.  At  all  events,  we  shall 
not  escape  our  duty  by  being  afraid  of  it;  we  shall 
not  escape  our  duty  by  inventing  to  ourselves  some 
other  duty,  and  calling  it  ^'  Order.^^  Elizabeth  did  so 
at  first.  She  tried  to  keep  the  peace  with  Spain  ;  she 
shrank  from  injuring  the  cause  of  Order  (then  a 
nobler  one  than  now,  because  it  was  the  cause  of 
Loyalty,  and  not  merely  of  Mammon)  by  assisting 
the  Scotch  and  the  Netherlanders :  but  her  duty  was 
forced  upon  her;  and  she  did  it  at  last,  cheerfully. 


12  ALEXANDRIA  AND   HER  SCHOOLS. 

boldly,  utterly,  like  a  hero;  slie  put  herself  at  the 
head  of  the  battle  for  the  freedom  of  the  world,  and 
she  conquered,  for  God  was  with  her;  and  so  that 
seemingly  most  fearful  of  all  England^s  perils,  when 
the  real  meaning  of  it  was  seen,  and  God^s  will  in  it 
obeyed  manfully,  became  the  foundation  of  England^s 
naval  and  colonial  empire,  and  laid  the  foundation  of 
all  her  future  glories.  So  it  was  then,  so  it  is  now ; 
so  it  will  be  for  ever  :  he  who  seeks  to  save  his  life 
will  lose  it :  he  who  willingly  throws  away  his  life  for 
the  cause  of  mankind,  which  is  the  cause  of  God, 
the  Father  of  mankind,  he  shall  save  it,  and  be 
rewarded  a  hundred-fold.  That  God  may  grant  us, 
the  children  of  the  Elizabethan  heroes,  all  wisdom 
to  see  our  duty,  and  courage  to  do  it,  even  to  the 
death,  should  be  our  earnest  prayer.  Our  statesmen 
have  done  wisely  and  well  in  refusing,  in  spite  of 
hot-headed  clamours,  to  appeal  to  the  sword  as  long 
as  there  was  any  chance  of  a  peaceful  settlement  even 
of  a  single  evil.  They  are  doing  wisely  and  well  now 
in  declining  to  throw  away  the  scabbard  as  long  as 
there  is  hope  that  a  determined  front  will  awe  the 
offender  into  submission  :  but  the  day  may  come  when 
the  scabbard  must  be  thrown  away;  and  God  grant 
that  they  may  have  the  courage  to  do  it. 

It  is  reported  that  our  rulers  have  said,  that 
English  diplomacy  can  no  longer  recognise  ^^  nationa- 
lities,'^ but  only  existing  "  governments.''^  God  grant 
that  they  may  see  in  time  that  the  assertion  of  national 
life,  as  a  spiritual  and  indefeasible  existence,  was  for 
centuries  the  central  idea  of  English  policy ;  the  idea 
by  faith  in  which  she  delivered  first  herself,  and  then 
the  Protestant  nations  of  the  Continent,  successively 
from  the  yokes  of  Eome,  of  Spain,  of  France;  and 


PREFACE.  13 

that  they  may  reassert  that  most  English  of  all  truths 
again^  let  the  apparent  cost  be  what  it  may. 

It  is  true,  that  this  end  will  not  be  attained 
without  what  is  called  nowadays  "a  destruction  of 
human  life/^  But  we  have  yet  to  learn  (at  least  if  the 
doctrines  which  I  have  tried  to  illustrate  in  this  little 
book  have  any  truth  in  them)  whether  shot  or  shell 
has  the  power  of  taking  away  human  life;  and  to 
believe,  if  we  believe  our  Bibles,  that  human  life  can 
only  be  destroyed  by  sin,  and  that  all  which  is  lost  in 
battle  is  that  animal  *  life  of  which  it  is  written, 
"  Fear  not  those  who  can  kill  the  body,  and  after  that 
have  no  more  that  they  can  do  :  but  I  will  forewarn 
you  whom  you  shall  fear;  him  who,  after  he  has 
killed,  has  power  to  destroy  both  body  and  soul  in 
hell.^^  Let  a  man  fear  him,  the  destroying  devil,  and 
fear  therefore  cowardice,  disloyalty,  selfishness,  slug- 
gishness, which  are  his  works,  and  to  be  utterly  afraid 
of  which  is  to  be  truly  brave.  God  grant  that  we  of 
the  clergy  may  remember  this  during  the  coming  war, 
and  instead  of  weakening  the  righteous  courage  and 
honour  of  our  countrymen  by  instilling  into  them 
selfish  and  superstitious  fears,  and  a  theory  of  the 
future  state  which  represents  God,  not  as  a  saviour, 
but  a  tormentor,  may  boldly  tell  them  that  "  He  is 
not  the  God  of  the  dead  but  of  the  living ;  for  all  live 
ointo  Him ; "  and  that  he  who  renders  up  his  animal 
life  as  a  worthless  thing,  in  the  cause  of  duty,  commits 
his  real  and  human  life,  his  very  soul  and  self,  into  the 
hands  of  a  just  and  merciful  Father,  who  has  promised 
to  leave  no  good  deed  unrewarded,  and  least  of  all 
that  most  noble  deed,  the  dying  like  a  man  for  the 
sake  not  merely  of  this  land  of  England,  but  of  the 
freedom  and  national  life  of  half  the  world. 


LECTUEE  I. 

THE   PTOLEMAIC   ERA. 

Befoee  I  begin  to  lecture  upon  tlie  Physical  and 
Metaphysical  schools  of  Alexandria,  it  may  be  better, 
perhaps,  to  define  the  meaning  of  these  two  epithets. 
Physical,  we  shall  all  agree,  means  that  which  belongs 
to  cj)v(rLs ',  natura ;  nature,  that  which  (pveraL^  nascitiir, 
grows,  by  an  organic  life,  and  therefore  decays  again ; 
which  has  a  beginning,  and  therefore,  I  presume,  an 
end.  And  Metaphysical  means  that  which  we  learn 
to  think  of  after  we  think  of  nature ;  that  which  is 
supernatural,  in  fact,  having  neither  beginning  nor 
end,  imperishable,  immovable,  and  eternal,  which 
does  not  become,  but  always  is.  These,  at  least,  are 
the  wisest  definitions  of  these  two  terms  for  us  just 
now ;  for  they  are  those  which  were  received  by  the 
whole  Alexandrian  school,  even  by  those  commen- 
tators who  say  that  Aristotle,  the  inventor  of  the  term 
Metaphysics,  named  his  treatise  so  only  on  account 
of  its  following  in  philosophic  sequence  his  book  on 
Physics. 

But,  according  to  these  definitions,  the  whole 
history  of  Alexandria  might  be  to  us,  from  one  point 
of  view,  a  physical  school ;  for  Alexandria,  its  society 


LECT.  I.]  THE   PTOLEMAIC   ERA.   ^  /    >  15 

and  its  philosopliy^  were  born^  and  grew^  and  t6d^  and^,,,^^^ 
reached  tlieir  vigour,  and   had/thpir  old  age,   thei^  vs^ 
death,  even  as  a  plant  or  ail  animal  l>as ;  and  after  < 
they  were   dead   and  dissolved,  the   atonas^  of   them 
formed  food  for  new  creations,  entered  into'iieW  orga-''/'> 
nisations,  just  as  the  atoms  of  a  dead  plant  or  aiiimal     // 
might  do.      Was  Alexandria  then,  from  beginning  to 
end,  merely  a  natural  and  physical  phenomenon? 

It  may  have  been.  And  yet  we  cannot  deny  that 
Alexandria  was  also  a  metaphysical  phenomenon,  vast 
and  deep  enough;  seeing  that  it  held  for  some 
eighteen  hundred  years  a  population  of  several 
hundred  thousand  souls;  each  of  whom,  at  least 
according  to  the  Alexandrian  philosophy,  stood  in  a 
very  intimate  relation  to  those  metaphysic  things 
which  are  imperishable  and  immovable  and  eternal, 
and  indeed,  contained  them  more  or  less^  each  man, 
woman^  and  child  of  them  in  themselves;  having 
wills,  reasons,  consciences^  affections,  relations  to  each 
other;  being  parents,  children,  helpmates,  bound 
together  by  laws  concerning  right  and  wrong,  and 
numberless  other  unseen  and  spiritual  relations. 

Surely  such  a  body  was  not  merely  natural,  any 
more  than  any  other  nation,  society,  or  scientific 
school,  made  up  of  men  and  of  the  spirits,  thoughts, 
affections  of  men.  It,  like  them,  was  surely  spiritual; 
and  could  be  only  living  and  healthy,  in  as  far  as  it 
was  in  harmony  with  certain  spiritual^  unseen,  and 
everlasting  laws  of  God;  perhaps,  as  certain  Alex- 
andrian philosophers  would  have  held,  in  as  far  as  it 
was  a  pattern  of  that  ideal  constitution  and  polity 
after  which  man  was  created,  the  city  of  God  which  is 
eternal  in  the  Heavens.  If  so,  may  we  not  suspect  of 
this  Alexandria  that  it  was  its  own  fault  if  it  became  a 


16  ALEXANDRIA  AND   HER   SCHOOLS.  [lect. 

merely  physical  phenomenon ;  and  that  it  stooped  to 
become  a  part  of  nature,  and  took  its  place  among  the 
things  which  are  born  to  die,  only  by  breaking  the 
law  which  God  had  appointed  for  it ;  so  fulfilling,  in 
its  own  case,  St.  PauFs  great  words,  that  death 
entered  into  the  world  by  sin,  and  that  sin  is  the 
transgression  of  the  law  ? 

Be  that  as  it  may,  there  must  have  been  meta- 
physic  enough  to  be  learnt  in  that,  or  any  city  of 
three  hundred  thousand  inhabitants,  even  though  it  had 
never  contained  lecture-room  or  philosopher's  chair, 
and  had  never  heard  the  names  of  Aristotle  and  Plato. 
Metaphysic  enough,  indeed,  to  be  learnt  there,  could 
we  but  enter  into  the  heart  of  even  the  most  brutish 
negro  slave  who  ever  was  brought  down  the  Nile  out 
of  the  desert  by  Nubian  merchants,  to  build  piers  and 
docks  in  whose  commerce  he  did  not  share,  temples 
whose  worship  he  did  not  comprehend,  libraries  and 
theatres  whose  learning  and  civilisation  were  to  him 
as  much  a  sealed  book  as  they  were  to  his  country- 
man, and  fellow-slave,  and  only  friend,  the  ape. 
There  was  metaphysic  enough  in  him  truly,  and 
things  eternal  and  immutable,  though  his  dark- 
skinned  descendants  were  three  hundred  years  in  dis- 
covering the  fact,  and  in  proving  it  satisfactorily  to 
all  mankind  for  ever.  You  must  pardon  me  if  I  seem 
obscure ;  I  cannot  help  looking  at  the  question  with  a 
somewhat  Alexandrian  eye,  and  talking  of  the  poor 
negro  dock-worker  as  certain  Alexandrian  philosophers 
would  have  talked,  of  whom  I  shall  have  to  speak 
hereafter. 

I  should  have  been  glad,  therefore,  had  time 
permitted  me,  instead  of  confining  myself  strictly  to 
what   are  now   called   ^^the  physic  and    metaphysic 


I.]  THE   PTOLEMAIC   ERA.  17 

schools  ^^  of  Alexandria,  to  have  tried  as  well  as  I 
could  to  make  you  understand  how  the  whole  vast 
phenomenon  grew  up^  and  supported  a  peculiar  life  of 
its  own^  for  fifteen  hundred  years  and  more^  and  was 
felt  to  be  the  third,  perhaps  the  second  city  of  the 
known  world,  and  one  so  important  to  the  great 
world-tyrant,  the  Caesar  of  Rome,  that  no  Roman  of 
distinction  was  ever  sent  there  as  prefect,  but  the 
Alexandrian  national  vanity  and  pride  of  race  was 
allowed  to  the  last  to  pet  itself  by  having  its  tyrant 
chosen  from  its  own  people. 

But,  though  this  cannot  be,  we  may  find  human 
elements  enough  in  the  schools  of  Alexandria,  strictly 
so  called,  to  interest  us  for  a  few  evenings;  for  these 
schools  were  schools  of  men ;  what  was  discovered 
and  taught  was  discovered  and  taught  by  men,  and 
not  by  thinking-machines  ;  and  whether  they  would 
have  been  inclined  to  confess  it  or  not,  their  own 
personal  characters,  likes  and  dislikes,  hopes  and 
fears,  strength  and  weakness,  beliefs  and  disbeliefs, 
determined  their  metaphysics  and  their  physics  for 
them,  quite  enough  to  enable  us  to  feel  for  them  as 
men  of  like  passions  with  ourselves;  and  for  that 
reason  only,  men  whose  thoughts  and  speculations  are 
worthy  of  a  moment's  attention  from  us.  For  what  is 
really  interesting  to  man,  save  men,  and  God,  the 
Father  of  men  ? 

In  the  year  331  B.C.  one  of  the  greatest  intellects 
whose  influence  the  world  has  ever  felt,  saw,  with  his 
eagle  glance,  the  unrivalled  advantage  of  the  spot 
which  is  now  Alexandria ;  and  conceived  the  mighty 
project  of  making  it  the  point  of  union  of  two,  or 
rather  of  three  worlds.  In  a  new  city,  named  after 
himself,  Europe,  Asia^  and  Africa  were  to  meet  and  to 

YOL.  I. — H.  E.  c 


18  ALEXANDEIA  AND    HER   SCHOOLS.  [lect. 

hold  communion.  A  glance  at  the  map  will  show  you 
what  an  SfKjyaKos  yrjs,  a  centre  of  the  world,  this 
Alexandria  is,  and  perhaps  arouse  in  your  minds,  as  it 
has  often  done  in  mine,  the  suspicion  that  it  has  not 
yet  fulfilled  its  whole  destiny,  but  may  become  at  any 
time  a  prize  for  contending  nationSj  or  the  centre  of 
some  world-wide  empire  to  come.  Communicating 
with  Europe  and  the  Levant  by  the  Mediterranean, 
with  India  by  the  Eed  Sea,  certain  of  boundless 
supplies  of  food  from  the  desert-guarded  valley  of  the 
Nile,  to  which  it  formed  the  only  key,  thus  keeping  all 
Egypt,  as  it  were,  for  its  own  private  farm,  it  was  weak 
only  on  one  side,  that  of  Judea.  That  small  strip  of 
fertile  mountain  land,  containing  innumerable  military 
positions  from  which  an  enemy  might  annoy  Egypt, 
being,  in  fact,  one  natural  chain  of  fortresses,  was  the 
key  to  Phoenicia  and  Syria.  It  was  an  eaglets  eyrie 
by  the  side  of  a  pen  of  fowls.  It  must  not  be  left 
defenceless  for  a  single  year.  Tyre  and  Gaza  had 
been  taken;  so  no  danger  was  to  be  apprehended 
from  the  seaboard  :  but  to  subdue  the  Judean  moun- 
taineers, a  race  whose  past  sufferings  had  hardened 
them  in  a  dogged  fanaticism  of  courage  and  endurance, 
would  be  a  long  and  sanguinary  task.  It  was  better 
to  make  terms  with  them;  to  employ  them  as  friendly 
warders  of  their  own  mountain  walls.  Their  very 
fanaticism  and  isolation  made  them  sure  allies.  There 
was  no  fear  of  their  fraternising  with  the  Eastern  in- 
vaders. If  the  country  was  left  in  their  hands,  they 
would  hold  it  against  all  comers.  Terms  were  made 
with  them;  and  for  several  centuries  they  fulfilled 
their  trust. 

This  I  apprehend  to  be  the  explanation  of  that 
conciliatory  policy  of  Alexander's  toward  the  Jews, 


I.]  THE   PTOLEMAIC   ERA.  19 

which  was  pursued  steadily  by  the  Ptolemies,  by 
Pompey,  and  by  the  Romans,  as  long  as  these  same 
Jews  continued  to  be  endurable  upon  the  face  of  the 
land.  At  least,  we  shall  find  the  history  of  Alexandria 
and  that  of  Judea  inextricably  united  for  more  than 
three  hundred  years. 

So  arose,  at  the  command  of  the  great  conqueror, 
a  mighty  city,  around  those  two  harbours,  of  which  the 
western  one  only  is  now  in  use.  The  Pharos  was  then 
an  island.  It  was  connected  with  the  mainland  by  a 
great  mole,  furnished  with  forts  and  drawbridges.  On 
the  ruins  of  that  mole  now  stands  the  greater  part  of 
the  modern  city ;  the  vast  site  of  the  ancient  one  is  a 
wilderness. 

But  Alexander  was  not  destined  to  carry  out  his 
own  magnificent  project.  That  was  left  for  the 
general  whom  he  most  esteemed,  and  to  whose 
personal  prowess  he  had  once  owed  his  life ;  a  man 
than  whom  history  knows  few  greater,  Ptolemy,  the 
son  of  Lagus.  He  was  an  adventurer,  the  son  of  an 
adventurer,  his  mother  a  cast-off  concubine  of  Philip 
of  Macedon.  There  were  those  who  said  that  he  was 
in  reality  a  son  of  Philip  himself.  However,  he  rose  at 
court,  became  a  private  friend  of  young  Alexander, 
and  at  last  his  Somatophylax,  some  sort  of  Colonel  of 
the  Life  Guards.  And  from  thence  he  rose  rapidly, 
till  after  his  great  master^s  death  he  found  himself 
despot  of  Egypt. 

His  face,  as  it  appears  on  his  coins,  is  of  the  loftiest 
and  most  Jove-like  type  of  Greek  beauty.  There  is  a 
possibility  about  it,  as  about  most  old  Greek  faces,  of 
boundless  cunning;  a  lofty  irony  too,  and  a  con- 
temptuousness,  especially  about  the  mouth,  which 
puts  one  in  mind  of  Goethe^s  expression;  the  face, 

0  2 


20  ALEXANDRIA  AND   HER   SCHOOLS.  [lect. 

altogether,  of  one  who  knew  men  too  well  to  respect 
them.  At  least,  he  was  a  man  of  clear  enough  vision. 
He  saw  what  was  needed  in  those  strange  times,  and 
he  went  straight  to  the  thing  which  he  saw.  It  was 
his  wisdom  which  perceived  that  the  huge  amorphous 
empire  of  Alexander  could  not  be  kept  together,  and 
advised  its  partition  among  the  generals,  taking  care 
to  obtain  himself  the  lion^s  share ;  not  in  size,  indeed, 
but  in  capability.  He  saw,  too  (what  every  man  does 
not  see),  that  the  only  way  to  keep  what  he  had  got 
was  to  make  it  better,  and  not  worse,  than  he  found  it. 
His  first  Egyptian  act  was  to  put  to  death  Cleomenes, 
Alexander's  lieutenant,  who  had  amassed  vast  treasures 
by  extortion ;  and  who  was,  moreover,  (for  Ptolemy 
was  a  prudent  man)  a  dangerous  partisan  of  his  great 
enemy,  Perdiccas.  We  do  not  read  that  he  refunded 
the  treasures  :  but  the  Egyptians  surnamed  him  Soter, 
the  Saviour ;  and  on  the  whole  he  deserved  the  title. 
Instead  of  the  wretched  misrule  and  slavery  of  the 
conquering  Persian  dynasty,  they  had  at  least  law  and 
order,  reviving  commerce,  and  a  system  of  administra- 
tion, we  are  told  (I  confess  to  speaking  here  quite  at 
second-hand),  especially  adapted  to  the  peculiar  caste- 
society,  and  the  religious  prejudices  of  Egypt.  But 
Ptolemy's  political  genius  went  beyond  such  merely 
material  and  Warburtonian  care  for  the  conservation 
of  body  and  goods  of  his  subjects.  He  effected  with 
complete  success  a  feat  which  has  been  attempted, 
before  and  since,  by  very  many  princes  and  potentates, 
but  has  always,  except  in  Ptolemy's  case,  proved  some- 
what of  a  failure,  namely,  the  making  a  new  deity. 
Mythology  in  general  was  in  a  rusty  state.  The  old 
Egyptian  gods  had  grown  in  his  dominions  very 
unfashionable,    under    the    summary    iconoclasm    to 


I.]  THE   PTOLEMAIC   ERA.  21 

whicli  they  had  been  subjected  by  the  Monotheist 
Persians — the  Puritans  of  the  old  world,  as  they  have 
been  well  called.  Indeed,  all  the  dolls,  and  the 
treasure  of  the  dolls^  temples  too,  had  been  carried  off 
by  Cambyses  to  Babylon.  And  as  for  the  Greek  gods, 
philosophers  had  sublimed  them  away  sadly  during 
the  last  century :  not  to  mention  that  Alexander's 
Macedonians,  during  their  wanderings  over  the  world, 
had  probably  become  rather  remiss  in  their  religious 
exercises^  and  had  possibly  given  up  mentioning  the 
Unseen  world,  except  for  those  hortatory  purposes  for 
which  it  used  to  be  employed  by  Nelson^s  veterans. 
But,  as  Ptolemy  felt,  people  (women  especially)  must 
have  something  wherein  to  believe.  The  ^^Eeligious 
Sentiment  ^^  in  man  must  be  satisfied.  But,  how  to 
do  it  ?  How  to  find  a  deity  who  would  meet  the 
aspirations  of  conquerors  as  well  as  conquered — of 
his  most  irreligious  Macedonians,  as  well  as  of  his 
most  religious  Egyptians  ?  It  was  a  great  problem  : 
but  Ptolemy  solved  it.  He  seems  to  have  taken  the 
same  method  which  Brindley  the  engineer  used  in  his 
perplexities,  for  he  went  to  bed.  And  there  he  had 
a  dream  :  How  the  foreign  god  Serapis,  of  Pont  us 
(somewhere  near  this  present  hapless  Sinope),  appeared 
to  him,  and  expressed  his  wish  to  come  to  Alexandria, 
and  there  try  his  influence  on  the  Religious  Sentiment. 
So  Serapis  was  sent  for,  and  came — at  least  the  idol  of 
him,  and — accommodating  personage  ! — he  actually 
fitted.  After  he  had  been  there  awhile,  he  was  found 
to  be  quite  an  old  acquaintance — to  be,  in  fact,  the 
Greek  Jove,  and  two  or  three  other  Greek  gods,  and  also 
two  or  three  Egyptian  gods  beside — indeed,  to  be  no  other 
than  the  bull  Apis,  after  his  death  and  deification.  I 
can  tell  you  no  more.    I  never  could  find  that  anything 


22  ALEXANDRIA   AND   HER    SCHOOLS.  [lect. 

more  was  known.  You  may  see  him  among  Greek  and 
Roman  statues  as  a  young  man,  with  a  sort  of  kigli 
basket-shaped  Persian  turban  on  his  head.  But,  at 
least,  he  was  found  so  pleasant  and  accommodating  a 
conscience-keeper,  that  he  spread,  with  Isis,  his  newly- 
found  mother,  or  wife,  over  the  whole  East,  and  even 
to  Eome.  The  Consuls  there — 50  years  B.C. — found  the 
pair  not  too  respectable,  and  pulled  down  their  temples. 
But,  so  popular  were  they,  in  spite  of  their  bad  fame, 
that  seven  years  after,  the  Triumvirs  had  to  build  the 
temples  up  again  elsewhere ;  and  from  that  time  forth, 
Isis  and  Serapis,  in  spite,  poor  things,  of  much  perse- 
cution, were  the  fashionable  deities  of  the  Roman  world. 
Surely  this  Ptolemy  was  a  man  of  genius  ! 

But  Ptolemy  had  even  more  important  work  to  do 
than  making  gods.  He  had  to  make  men ;  for  he  had 
few  or  none  ready  made  among  his  old  veterans  from 
Issus  and  Arbela.  He  had  no  hereditary  aristocracy  : 
and  he  wanted  none.  No  aristocracy  of  wealth ;  that 
might  grow  of  itself,  only  too  fast  for  his  despotic 
power.  But  as  a  despot,  he  must  have  a  knot  of  men 
round  him  who  would  do  his  work.  And  here  came 
out  his  deep  insight  into  fact.  It  had  not  escaped  that 
man,  what  was  the  secret  of  Greek  supremacy.  How 
had  he  come  there  ?  How  had  his  great  master 
conquered  half  the  world  ?  How  had  the  little  semi- 
barbarous  mountain  tribe  up  there  in  Pella,  risen 
under  Philip  to  be  the  master-race  of  the  globe? 
How,  indeed,  had  Xenophon  and  his  Ten  Thousand, 
how  had  the  handfuls  of  Salamis  and  Marathon,  held 
out  triumphantly  century  after  century,  against  the 
vast  weight  of  the  barbarian  ?  The  simple  answer 
was  :  Because  the  Greek  has  mind,  the  barbarian  mere 
brute  force.     Because  mind  is  the  lord   of  matter;. 


I.]  THE    PTOLEMAIC    ERA.  23 

because  the  Greek  being  the  cultivated  man,  is  the 
only  true  man ;  the  rest  are  ^dpjBapoi,  mere  things,  clods, 
tools  for  the  wise  Greeks^  use,  in  spite  of  all  their 
material  phantom-strength  of  elephants,  and  treasures, 
and  tributaries  by  the  million.  Mind  was  the  secret 
of  Greek  power;  and  for  that  Ptolemy  would  work. 
He  would  have  an  aristocracy  of  intellect ;  he  would 
gather  round  him  the  wise  men  of  the  world  (glad 
enough  most  of  them  to  leave  that  miserable  Greece, 
where  every  man^s  life  was  in  his  hand  from  hour  to 
hour),  and  he  would  develop  to  its  highest  the 
conception  of  Philip,  when  he  made  Aristotle  the 
tutor  of  his  son  Alexander.  The  consequences  of  that 
attempt  were  written  in  letters  of  blood,  over  half  the 
world;  Ptolemy  would  attempt  it  once  more,  with 
gentler  results.  For  though  he  fought  long,  and 
often,  and  well,  as  Despot  of  Egypt,  no  less  than  as 
general  of  Alexander,  he  was  not  at  heart  a  man  of 
bloody  and  made  peace  the  end  of  all  his  wars. 

So  he  begins.  Aristotle  is  gone  :  but  in  Aristotle^s 
place  Philetas  the  sweet  singer  of  Cos,  and  Zenodotus 
the  grammarian  of  Ephesus,  shall  educate  his  favourite 
son,  and  he  will  have  a  literary  court,  and  a  literary  age. 
Demetrius  Phalereus,  the  Admirable  Crichton  of  his 
time,  the  last  of  Attic  orators,  statesman,  philosopher, 
poet,  warrior,  and  each  of  them  in  the  most  graceful, 
insinuating,  courtly  way,  migrates  to  Alexandria,  after 
having  had  the  three  hundred  and  sixty  statues,  which 
the  Athenians  had  too  hastily  erected  to  his  honour, 
as  hastily  pulled  down  again.  Here  was  a  prize  for 
Ptolemy  !  The  charming  man  became  his  bosom  friend 
and  fellow,  even  revised  the  laws  of  his  kingdom,  and 
fired  him,  if  report  says  true,  with  a  mighty  thought 
— no   less   a   one  than   the   great  public  Library  of 


24  ALEXANDRIA   AND   HER    SCHOOLS.  [lect. 

Alexandria ;  the  first  sucli  institution,  it  is  said,  wliicli 
the  world  had  ever  seen. 

So  a  library  is  begun  by  Soter,  and  organised  and 
completed  by  Philadelphus ;  or  rather  two  libraries, 
for  while  one  part  was  kept  at  the  Serapeium,  that 
vast  temple  on  the  inland  rising  ground,  of  which,  as 
far  as  we  can  discover,  Pompey^s  Pillar  alone  remains, 
one  column  out  of  four  hundred,  the  rest  was  in  the 
Brucheion  adjoining  the  Palace  and  the  Museum. 
Philadelphus  buys  Aristotle^ s  collection  to  add  to  the 
stock,  and  Euergetes  cheats  the  Athenians  out  of  the 
original  MSS.  of  ^schylus,  Sophocles,  and  Euripides, 
and  adds  largely  to  it  by  more  honest  methods. 
Eumenes,  King  of  Pergamus  in  Asia  Minor,  fired  with 
emulation,  commences  a  similar  collection,  and  is  so 
successful,  that  the  reigning  Ptolemy  has  to  cut  off  his 
rival^s  supplies  by  prohibiting  the  exportation  of 
papyrus ;  and  the  Pergamenian  books  are  henceforth 
transcribed  on  parchment,  parchemin,  Pergamene, 
which  thus  has  its  name  to  this  day,  from  Pergamus. 
That  collection,  too,  found  its  way  at  last  to  Alexandria. 
For  Antony  having  become  possessor  of  it  by  right  of 
the  stronger,  gave  it  to  Cleopatra  ;  and  it  remained  at 
Alexandria  for  seven  hundred  years.  But  we  must 
not  anticipate  events. 

Then  there  must  be  besides  a  Mouseion,  a  Temple 
of  the  Muses,  with  all  due  appliances,  in  a  vast  building 
adjoining  the  palace  itself,  under  the  very  wing  of 
royalty;  and  it  must  have  porticos,  wherein  sages 
may  converse  ;  lecture-rooms,  where  they  may  display 
themselves  at  their  will  to  their  rapt  scholars,  each 
like  a  turkey-cock  before  his  brood;  and  a  large 
dining-hall,   where    they  may   enjoy    themselves    in 


l]  the   PTOLEMAIC    ERA.  25 

moderation,  as  befits  sages,  not  without  puns  and 
repartees,  epigrams,  anagrams,  and  Attic  salt,  to  be 
fatal,  alas,  to  poor  Diodorus  the  dialectician.  For 
Stilpo,  prince  of  sophists,  having  silenced  him  by 
some  quibbling  puzzle  of  logic,  Ptolemy  surnamed 
him  Chronos  the  Slow.  Poor  Diodorus  went  home, 
took  pen  and  ink,  wrote  a  treatise  on  the  awful 
nothing,  and  died  in  despair,  leaving  five  ^^  dialectical 
daughters  ''  behind  him,  to  be  thorns  in  the  sides  of 
some  five  hapless  men  of  Macedonia,  as  ^^  emancipated 
women  ;  '^  a  class  but  too  common  in  the  later  days  of 
Greece,  as  they  will  always  be,  perhaps,  in  civilisations 
which  are  decaying  and  crumbling  to  pieces,  leaving 
their  members  to  seek  in  bewilderment  what  they  are, 
and  what  bonds  connect  them  with  their  fellow-beings. 
But  to  return :  funds  shall  be  provided  for  the 
Museum  from  the  treasury ;  a  priest  of  rank,  appointed 
by  royalty,  shall  be  curator ;  botanical  and  zoological 
gardens  shall  be  attached;  collections  of  wonders 
made.  In  all  things  the  presiding  genius  of  Aristotle 
shall  be  worshipped ;  for  these,  like  Alexander,  were 
his  pupils.  Had  he  not  mapped  out  all  heaven  and 
earth,  things  seen  and  unseen,  with  his  entelechies, 
and  energies,  and  dunameis,  and  put  every  created  and 
uncreated  thing  henceforth  into  its  proper  place,  from 
the  ascidians  and  polypes  of  the  sea  to  the  virtues  and 
the  vices — yea,  to  that  Great  Deity  and  Prime  Cause 
(which  indeed  was  all  things),  Noesis  Noeseon,  ^^the 
Thought  of  Thoughts,^^  whom  he  discovered  by 
irrefragable  processes  of  logic,  and  in  whom  the 
philosophers  believe  privately,  leaving  Serapis  to  the 
women  and  the  sailors  ?  All  they  had  to  do  was  to 
follow  in  his  steps ;  to  take  each  of  them  a  branch, 
of  science  or  literature,  or  as  many  branches  as  one 


26  ALEXANDEIA   AND   HEE   SCHOOLS.  [lect. 

man  conveniently  can ;  and  working  tliem  out  on  the 
approved  methods,  end  in  a  few  years,  as  Alexander 
did,  by  weeping  on  the  utmost  shore  of  creation  that 
there  are  no  more  worlds  left  to  conquer. 

Alas !  the  Muses  are  shy  and  wild ;  and  though 
they  will  haunt,  like  skylarks,  on  the  bleakest  northern 
moor  as  cheerfully  as  on  the  sunny  hills  of  Greece,  and 
rise  thence  singing  into  the  heaven  of  heavens,  yet 
they  are  hard  to  tempt  into  a  gilded  cage,  however 
amusingly  made  and  plentifully  stored  with  comforts. 
Eoyal  societies,  associations  of  savants,  and  the  like, 
are  good  for  many  things,  but  not  for  the  breeding  of 
art  and  genius  :  for  they  are  things  which  cannot  be 
bred.  Such  institutions  are  excellent  for  physical 
science,  when,  as  among  us  now,  physical  science  is 
going  on  the  right  method  :  but  where,  as  in 
Alexandria,  it  was  going  on  an  utterly  wrong  method, 
they  stereotype  the  errors  of  the  age,  and  invest  them 
with  the  prestige  of  authority,  and  produce  mere 
Sorbonnes,  and  schools  of  pedants.  To  literature,  too^ 
they  do  some  good,  that  is,  in  a  literary  age — an  age 
of  reflection  rather  than  of  production,  of  antiquarian 
research,  criticism,  imitation,  when  book-making  has 
become  an  easy  and  respectable  pursuit  for  the  many 
who  cannot  dig,  and  are  ashamed  to  beg.  And  yet,  by 
adding  that  same  prestige  of  authority,  not  to  mention 
of  good  society  and  Court  favour,  to  the  popular 
mania  for  literature,  they  help  on  the  growing  evil,, 
and  increase  the  multitude  of  prophets  who  prophesy 
out  of  their  own  heart  and  have  seen  nothing. 

And  this  was,  it  must  be  said,  the  outcome  of  all 
the  Ptolemaean  appliances. 

In  Physics  they  did  little.  In  Art  nothing.  In 
Metaphysics  less  than  nothing. 


I.]  THE   PTOLEMAIC    ERA.  27 

We  will  first  examine,  as  the  more  pleasant  spectacle 
of  the  two,  that  branch  of  thought  in  which  some 
progress  was  really  made,  and  in  which  the  Ptolemaic 
schools  helped  forward  the  development  of  men  who 
have  become  world-famous,  and  will  remain  so,  I 
suppose,  until  the  end  of  time. 

Pour  names  at  once  attract  us :  Euclid,  Aristarchus, 
Eratosthenes,  Hipparchus.  Archimedes,  also,  should 
be  included  in  the  list,  for  he  was  a  pupil  of  the 
Alexandrian  school,  having  studied  (if  Proclus  is  to  be 
trusted)  in  Egypt,  under  Conon  the  Samian,  during 
the  reigns  of  two  Ptolemies,  Philadelphus  and  Euergetes. 

Of  Euclid,  as  the  founder  (according  to  Proclus) 
of  the  Alexandrian  Mathematical  school,  I  must  of 
course  speak  first.  Those  who  wish  to  attain  to  a 
juster  conception  of  the  man  and  his  work  than  they 
can  do  from  any  other  source,  will  do  well  to  read 
Professor  De  Morgan^ s  admirable  article  on  him  in 
** Smithes  Classical  Dictionary;"  which  includes,  also,  a 
valuable  little  sketch  of  the  rise  of  Geometric  science, 
from  Pythagoras  and  Plato,  of  whose  school  Eaclid 
was,  to  the  great  master  himself. 

I  shall  confine  myself  to  one  observation  on 
Euclid^s  genius,  and  on  the  immense  influence  which 
it  exerted  on  after  generations.  It  seems  to  me, 
speaking  under  correction,  that  it  exerted  this, 
because  it  was  so  complete  a  type  of  the  general 
tendency  of  the  Greek  mind,  deductive,  rather 
than  inductive;  of  unrivalled  subtlety  in  obtaining 
results  from  principles,  and  results  ,  again  from 
them  ad  infinitum:  deficient  in  that  sturdy  moral 
patience  which  is  required  for  the  examination  of  facts, 
and  which  has  made  Britain  at  once  a  land  of  practical 
craftsmen,  and  of  earnest  scientific  discoverers. 


28  ALEXANDRIA   AND   HER   SCHOOLS.  [lect. 

Volatile,  restless,  ^^  always  children  longing  for 
something  new/^  as  the  Egyptian  priest  said  of  them, 
they  were  too  ready  to  believe  that  they  had  attained 
laws,  and  then,  tired  with  their  toy,  throw  away 
those  hastily  assumed  laws,  and  wander  off  in 
search  of  others.  Gifted,  beyond  all  the  sons  of  men, 
with  the  most  exquisite  perception  of  form,  both 
physical  and  metaphysical,  they  could  become 
geometers  and  logicians  as  they  became  sculptors 
and  artists;  beyond  that  they  could  hardly  rise. 
They  were  conscious  of  their  power  to  build ;  and  it 
made  them  ashamed  to  dig. 

Four  men  only  among  them  seem,  as  far  as  I  can 
judge,  to  have  had  a  great  inductive  power:  Socrates 
and  Plato  in  Metaphysics;  Archimedes  and  Hipparchus 
in  Physics.  But  these  men  ran  so  far  counter  to  the 
national  genius,  that  their  examples  were  not  followed. 
As  you  will  hear  presently,  the  discoveries  of  Archi- 
medes and  Hipparchus  were  allowed  to  remain  where 
they  were  for  centuries.  The  Dialectic  of  Plato  and 
Socrates  was  degraded  into  a  mere  art  for  making 
anything  appear  alternately  true  and  false,  and  among 
the  Megaric  school,  for  undermining  the  ground  of  all 
science,  and  paving  the  way  for  scepticism,  by  deny- 
ing the  natural  world  to  be  the  object  of  certain  know- 
ledge. The  only  element  of  Plato^s  thought  to  which 
they  clung  was,  as  we  shall  find  from  the  Neoplato- 
nists,  his  physical  speculations ;  in  which,  deserting 
his  inductive  method,  he  has  fallen  below  himself  into 
the  popular  cacoethes,  and  Pythagorean  deductive 
dreams  about  the  mysterious  powers  of  numbers,  and 
of  the  regular  solids. 

Such  a  people,  when  they  took  to  studying  physical 
science,   would    be,   and    in   fact  were,   incapable  of 


I.]  THE   PTOLEMAIC    ERA.  29 

Chemistry,  Geognosy^  Comparative  Anatomy,  or  any 
of  that  noble  choir  of  sister  sciences,  which  are  now 
building  up  the  material  as  well  as  the  intellectual  glory 
of  Britain. 

To  Astronomy,  on  the  other  hand,  the  pupils  of 
Euclid  turned  naturally,  as  to  the  science  which  required 
the  greatest  amount  of  their  favourite  geometry  :  but 
even  that  they  were  content  to  let  pass  from  its 
inductive  to  its  deductive  stage — not  as  we  have  done 
now,  after  two  centuries  of  inductive  search  for  the 
true  laws,  and  their  final  discovery  by  Kepler  and 
Newton  :  but  as  soon  as  Hipparchus  had  propounded 
any  theory  which  would  do  instead  of  the  true  laws, 
content  there  to  stop  their  experiments,  and  return  to 
their  favourite  work  of  commenting,  deducing,  spinning 
notion  out  of  notion,  ad  infinitum. 

Still,  they  were  not  all  of  this  temper.  Had 
they  been,  they  would  have  discovered,  not  merely 
a  little,  but  absolutely  nothing.  For  after  all,  if 
we  will  consider,  induction  being  the  right  path  to 
knowledge,  every  man,  whether  he  knows  it  or  not, 
uses  induction,  more  or  less,  by  the  mere  fact  of  his 
having  a  human  reason,  and  knowing  anything  at  all ; 
as  M.  Jourdain  talked  prose  all  his  life  without  being 
aware  of  it. 

Aristarchus  is  principally  famous  for  his  attempt  to 
discover  the  distance  of  the  sun  as  compared  with  that 
of  the  moon.  His  method  was  ingenious  enough,  but 
too  rough  for  success,  as  it  depended  principally  on 
the  belief  that  the  line  bounding  the  bright  part  of 
the  moon  was  an  exact  straight  line.  The  result  was 
of  course  erroneous.  He  concluded  that  the  sun  Was 
18  times  as  far  as  the  moon,  and  not,  as  we  now  know, 
400;  but  his  conclusion,  like  his  conception  of  the 


30  ALEXANDRIA   AND    HER   SCHOOLS.  [lect. 

vast  extent  of  tlie  sphere  of  tlie  fixed  stars,,  was  far 
enough,  in  advance  of  the  popular  doctrine  to  subject 
him,  according  to  Plutarch,  to  a  charge  of  impiety. 

Eratosthenes,  again,  contributed  his  mite  to  the 
treasure  of  human  science — his  one  mite ;  and  yet  by 
that  he  is  better  known  than  by  all  the  volumes  which 
he  seems  to  have  poured  out,  on  Ethics,  Chronology, 
Criticism  on  the  Old  Attic  Comedy,  and  what  not,  spun 
out  of  his  weary  brain  during  a  long  life  of  research 
and  meditation.  They  have  all  perished, — like  ninety- 
nine  hundredths  of  the  labours  of  that  great  literary 
age ;  and  perhaps  the  world  is  no  poorer  for  the  loss. 
But  one  thing,  which  he  attempted  on  a  sound  and 
practical  philosophic  method,  stands,  and  will  stand 
for  ever.  And  after  all,  is  not  that  enough  to  have 
lived  for?  to  have  found  out  one  true  thing,  and, 
therefore,  one  imperishable  thing,  in  one^s  life  ?  If 
each  one  of  us  could  but  say  when  he  died  :  ^^  This  one 
thing  I  have  found  out ;  this  one  thing  I  have  proved 
to  be  possible ;  this  one  eternal  fact  I  have  rescued 
from  Hela,  the  realm  of  the  formless  and  unknown,^^ 
how  rich  one  such  generation  might  make  the  world 
for  ever ! 

But  such  is  not  the  appointed  method.  The  finders 
are  few  and  far  between,  because  the  true  seekers  are 
few  and  far  between ;  and  a  whole  generation  has  often 
nothing  to  show  for  its  existence  but  one  solitary  gem 
which  some  one  man — often  unnoticed  in  his  time — 
has  picked  up  for  them,  and  so  given  them  '^  a  local 
habitation  and  a  name.^^ 

Eratosthenes  had  heard  that  in  Syene,  in  Upper 
Egypt,  deep  wells  were  enlightened  to  the  bottom  on 
the  day  of  the  summer  solstice,  and  that  vertical  objects 
cast  no  shadows. 


I.]  THE    PTOLEMAIC   ERA.  31 

He  had  before  suggested^  as  is  supposed,  to 
Ptolemy  Euergetes,  to  make  him  the  two  great  copper 
armillaa,  or  circles  for  determining  the  equinox,  which 
stood  for  centuries  in  ^^  that  which  is  called  the  Square 
Porch  ^^ — probably  somewhere  in  the  Museum.  By 
these  he  had  calculated  the  obliquity  of  the  ecliptic, 
closely  enough  to  serve  for  a  thousand  years  after. 
That  was  one  work  done.  But  what  had  the  Syene 
shadows  to  do  with  that  ?  Syene  must  be  under  that 
ecliptic.  On  the  edge  of  it.  In  short,  just  under  the 
tropic.  Now  he  had  ascertained  exactly  the  latitude 
of  one  place  on  the  earth^s  surface.  He  had  his  known 
point  from  whence  to  start  on  a  world- journey,  and  he 
would  use  it ;  he  would  calculate  the  circumference  of 
the  earth — and  he  did  it.  By  observations  made  at 
Alexandria,  he  ascertained  its  latitude  compared  with 
that  of  Syene ;  and  so  ascertained  what  proportion  to 
the  whole  circumference  was  borne  by  the  5000  stadia 
between  Alexandria  and  Syene.  He  fell  into  an  error, 
by  supposing  Alexandria  and  Syene  to  be  under  the 
same  meridians  of  longitude  :  but  that  did  not  prevent 
his  arriving  at  a  fair  rough  result  of  252,000  stadia — 
31,500  Eoman  miles ;  considerably  too  much ;  but 
still,  before  him,  I  suppose,  none  knew  whether  it  was 
10,000,  or  10,000,000.  The  right  method  having  once 
been  found,  nothing  remained  but  to  employ  it  more 
accurately. 

One  other  great  merit  of  Eratosthenes  is,  that  he 
first  raised  Geography  to  the  rank  of  a  science.  His 
Geographica  were  an  organic  collection,  the  first  the 
world  had  ever  seen,  of  all  the  travels  and  books  of 
earth- description  heaped  together  in  the  Great  Library, 
of  which  he  was  for  many  years  the  keeper.  He  began 
with  a  geognostic  book,  touched  on  the   traces  of 


32  ALEXANDRIA   AND   HER   SCHOOLS.  [lect. 

Cataclysms  and  Change  visible  on  tlie  eartVs  surface.; 
followed  by  two  books,  one  a  mathematical  book,  the 
other  on  political  geography,  and  completed  by  a  map 

— which  one  would  like  to  see  :  but not  a  trace  of 

all  remains,  save  a  few  quoted  fragments — 

We  are  such  stuff 
As  dreams  are  made  of. 

But  if  Eratosthenes  had  hold  of  eternal  fact  and  law 
on  one  point,  there  was  a  contemporary  who  had  hold  of 
it  in  more  than  one.  I  mean  Archimedes  ;  of  whom, 
as  I  have  said,  we  must  speak  as  of  an  Alexandrian. 
It  was  as  a  mechanician,  rather  than  as  an  astronomer, 
that  he  gained  his  reputation.  The  stories  of  his 
Hydraulic  Screw,  the  Great  Ship  which  he  built  for 
Hiero,  and  launched  by  means  of  machinery,  his  crane, 
his  war-engines,  above  all  his  somewhat  mythical 
arrangement  of  mirrors,  by  which  he  set  fire  to  ships 
in  the  harbour — all  these,  like  the  story  of  his  detecting 
the  alloy  in  Hiero^s  crown,  while  he  himself  was  in  the 
bath,  and  running  home  undressed  shouting  evprjKa — 
all  these  are  schoolboys^  tales.  To  the  thoughtful 
person  it  is  the  method  of  the  man  which  constitutes 
his  real  greatness,  that  power  of  insight  by  which  he 
solved  the  two  great  problems  of  the  nature  of  the  lever 
and  of  hydrostatic  pressure,  which  form  the  basis  of  all 
static  and  hydrostatic  science  to  this  day.  And  yet 
on  that  very  question  of  the  lever  the  great  mind 
of  Aristotle  babbles — neither  sees  the  thing  itself,  nor 
the  way  towards  seeing  it.  But  since  Archimedes 
spoke,  the  thing  seems  self-evident  to  every  schoolboy. 
There  is  something  to  me  very  solemn  in  such  a  fact 
as  this.  It  brings  us  down  to  some  of  the  very  deepest 
questions  of  metaphysic.     This  mental  insight  of  which 


1.]  THE    PTOLEMAIC   ERA.  33 

we  boast  so  mucli,  wliat  is  it  ?  Is  it  altogether  a  process 
of  our  own  brain  and  will  ?  If  it  be^  why  have  so  few  the 
power,  even  among  men  of  power,  and  they  so  seldom  ? 
If  brain  alone  were  what  was  wanted,  what  could  not 
Aristotle  have  discovered  ?  Or  is  it  that  no  man  can 
see  a  thing  unless  God  shows  it  him  ?  Is  it  that  in 
each  separate  act  of  induction,  that  mysterious  and 
transcendental  process  which  cannot,  let  logicians  try 
as  they  will,  be  expressed  by  any  merely  logical 
formula,  Aristotelian  or  other — is  it,  I  say,  that  in 
each  separate  act  of  induction  we  do  not  find  the  law, 
but  the  law  is  shown  to  us,  by  Him  who  made  the  law  ? 
Bacon  thought  so.  Of  that  you  may  find  clear  proof 
in  his  writings.  May  not  Bacon  be  right  ?  May  it 
not  be  true  that  God  does  in  science,  as  well  as  in 
ethics,  hide  things  from  the  wise  and  prudent,  from 
the  proud,  complete,  self-contained  systematiser  like 
Aristotle,  who  must  needs  explain  all  things  in  heaven 
and  earth  by  his  own  formulaB,  and  his  entelechies  and 
energies,  and  the  rest  of  the  notions  which  he  has 
made  for  himself  out  of  his  own  brain,  and  then  pack 
each  thing  away  in  its  proper  niche  in  his  great  cloud- 
universe  of  conceptions  ?  Is  it  that  God  hides  things 
from  such  men  many  a  time,  and  reveals  them  to  babes, 
to  gentle,  affectionate,  simple-hearted  men,  such  as  we 
know  Archimedes  to  have  been,  who  do  not  try  to  give 
an  explanation  for  a  fact,  but  feel  how  awfiil  and 
divine  it  is,  and  wrestle  reverently  and  stedfastly  with 
it,  as  Jacob  with  the  Angel,  and  will  not  let  it  go, 
until  it  bless  them  ?  Sure  I  am,  from  what  I  have 
seen  of  scientific  men,  that  there  is  an  intimate  con- 
nection between  the  health  of  the  moral  faculties 
and  the  health  of  the  inductive  ones ;  and  that  the 
proud,   self- conceited,    and  passionate   man  will   see 

VOL.  L — H.  E.  D 


34  ALEXANDRIA  AND  HER  SCHOOLS.  [lect. 

nothing:  perhaps  because  nothing  will  be  shown 
him. 

But  we  must  leave  Archimedes  for  a  man  not  per- 
haps so  well  known^  but  to  whom  we  owe  as  much  as 
to  the  great  Syracusan — Hipparchus  the  astronomer. 
To  his  case  much  which  I  have  just  said  applies.  In 
him  astronomic  science  seemed  to  awaken  suddenly  ta 
a  true  inductive  method,  and  after  him  to  fall  into  its 
old  slumber  for  300  years.  In  the  meantime  Timo- 
charis,  Aristyllus,  and  Conon  had  each  added  their 
mites  to  the  discoveries  of  Eratosthenes :  but  to 
Hipparchus  we  owe  that  theory  of  the  heavens^ 
commonly  called  the  Ptolemaic  system,  which,  starting 
from  the  assumption  that  the  earth  was  the  centre  of 
the  universe,  attempted  to  explain  the  motions  of  the 
heavenly  bodies  by  a  complex  system  of  supposed 
eccentrics  and  epicycles.  This  has  of  course  now 
vanished  before  modern  discoveries.  But  its  value  as 
a  scientific  attempt  lies  in  this  :  that  the  method  being 
a  correct  one,  correct  results  were  obtained,  though 
starting  from  a  false  assumption ;  and  Hipparchus  and 
his  successors  were  enabled  by  it  to  calculate  and 
predict  the  changes  of  the  heavens,  in  spite  of  their 
clumsy  instruments,  with  almost  as  much  accuracy  as 
we  do  now. 

For  the  purpose  of  working  out  this  theory  he  re- 
quired a  science  of  trigonometry,  plane  and  spherical : 
and  this  he  accordingly  seems  to  have  invented.  To 
him  also  we  owe  the  discovery  of  that  vast  gradual 
change  in  the  position  of  the  fixed  stars,  in  fact,  of  the 
whole  celestial  system,  now  known  by  the  name  of  the 
precession  of  the  equinoxes ;  the  first  great  catalogue 
of  fixed  stars,  to  the  number  of  1080;  attempts  to 
ascertain  whether  the  length  of  years  and  days  were 


I.]  THE   PTOLEMAIC  ERA..  35 

constant ;  with.  wHch^  with,  his  characteristic  love  of 
truth^  he  seems  to  have  been  hardly  satisfied.  He  too 
invented  the  planisphere,  or  mode  of  representing  the 
starry  heavens  upon  a  plane,  and  is  the  father  of  true 
geography,  having  formed  the  happy  notion  of  map- 
ping out  the  earth,  as  well  as  the  heavens,  by  degrees 
of  latitude  and  longitude. 

Strange  it  is,  and  somewhat  sad,  that  we  should 
know  nothing  of  this  great  man,  should  be  hardly  able 
to  distinguish  him  from  others  of  the  same  name,  but 
through  the  works  of  a  commentator,  who  wrote  and 
observed  in  Alexandria  300  years  after,  during  the 
age  of  the  Antonines.  I  mean,  of  course,  the  famous 
Ptolemy,  whose  name  so  long  bore  the  honour  of  that 
system  which  really  belonged  to  Hipparchus. 

This  single  fact  speaks  volumes  for  the  real  weak- 
ness of  the  great  artificial  school  of  literature  and 
science  founded  by  the  kings  of  Egypt.  From  the 
father  of  Astronomy,  as  Delambre  calls  him,  to 
Ptolemy,  the  first  man  who  seems  really  to  have 
appreciated  him,  we  have  not  a  discovery,  hardly  an 
observation  or  a  name,  to  fill  the  gap.  Physical  sages 
there  were ;  but  they  were  geometers  and  mathema- 
ticians, rather  than  astronomic  observers  and  inquirers. 
And  in  spite  of  all  the  huge  appliances  and  advantages 
of  that  great  Museum,  its  inhabitants  were  content,  in 
physical  science,  as  in  all  other  branches  of  thought, 
to  comment,  to  expound,  to  do  everything  but  open 
their  eyes  and  observe  facts,  and  learn  from  them,  as 
the  predecessors  whom  they  pretended  to  honour  had 
done.  But  so  it  is  always.  A  genius,  an  original  man 
appears.  He  puts  himself  boldly  in  contact  with  facts, 
asks  them  what  they  mean,  and  writes  down  their 
answer  for  the  world^s  use.     And  then  his  disciples 

D  2 


36  ALEXANDRIA  AND   HER   SCHOOLS.  [lect. 

must  needs  form  a  school,  and  a  system  ;  and  fancy 
that  they  do  honour  to  their  master  by  refusing  to 
follow  in  his  steps ;  by  making  his  book  a  fixed  dog- 
matic canon;  attaching  to  it  some  magical  infalli- 
bility ;  declaring  the  very  lie  which  he  disproved  by 
his  whole  existence,  that  discovery  is  henceforth  im- 
possible, and  the  sum  of  knowledge  complete  :  instead 
of  going  on  to  discover  as  he  discovered  before  them, 
and  by  following  h.\s  method,  show  that  they  honour 
him,  not  in  the  letter,  but  in  spirit  and  in  truth. 

For  this,  if  you  will  consider,  is  the  true  meaning 
of  that  great  command,  *^  Honour  thy  father  and 
mother,  that  thy  days  may  be  long  in  the  land/^  On 
reverence  for  the  authority  of  bygone  generations 
depends  the  permanence  of  every  form  of  thought  or 
belief,  as  much  as  of  all  social,  national,  and  family 
life  :  but  on  reverence  of  the  spirit,  not  merely  of  the 
letter ;  of  the  methods  of  our  ancestors,  not  merely  of 
their  conclusions.  Ay,  and  we  shall  not  be  able  to 
preserve  their  conclusions,  not  even  to  understand 
them ;  they  will  die  away  on  our  lips  into  skeleton 
notions,  and  soulless  phrases,  unless  we  see  that  the 
greatness  of  the  mighty  dead  has  always  consisted  in 
this,  that  they  were  seekers,  improvers,  inventors, 
endued  with  that  divine  power  and  right  of  discovery 
which  has  been  bestowed  on  us,  even  as  on  them  ; 
unless  we  become  such  men  as  they  were,  and  go  on  to 
cultivate  and  develop  the  precious  heritage  which  they 
have  bequeathed  to  us,  instead  of  hiding  their  talent 
in  a  napkin  and  burying  it  in  the  earth;  making 
their  greatness  an  excuse  for  our  own  littleness,  their 
industry  for  our  laziness,  their  faith  for  our  despair  ; 
and  prating  about  the  old  paths,  while  we  forget 
that    paths    were    made    that    men    might   walk   in 


I.]  THE  PTOLEMAIC   ERA.  37 

tliemj  and  not  stand  stilly  and  try  in  vain  to  stop  tlie 
way. 

It  may  be  said,  certainly,  as  an  excuse  for  these 
Alexandrian  Greeks,,  that  they  were  a  people  in  a 
state  of  old  age  and  decay;  and  that  they  only  ex- 
hibited the  common  and  natural  faults  of  old  age. 
For  as  with  individuals,  so  with  races,  nations, 
societies,  schools  of  thought — youth  is  the  time  of 
free  fancy  and  poetry ;  manhood  of  calm  and  strong 
induction;  old  age  of  deduction,  when  men  settle 
down  upon  their  lees,  and  content  themselves  with  re- 
aflSrming  and  verifying  the  conclusions  of  their  earlier 
years,  and  too  often,  alas  !  with  denying  and  anathe- 
matising all  conclusions  which  have  been  arrived  at 
since  their  own  meridian.  It  is  sad  :  but  it  is  patent 
and  common.  It  is  sad  to  think  that  the  day  may 
come  to  each  of  us,  when  we  shall  have  ceased  to  hope 
for  discovery  and  for  progress ;  when  a  thing  will 
seem  a  priori  false  to  us,  simply  because  it  is  new ; 
and  we  shall  be  saying  querulously  to  the  Divine 
Light  which  lightens  every  man  who  comes  into  the 
world :  "  Hitherto  shalt  thou  come,  and  no  further. 
Thou  hast  taught  men  enough ;  yea  rather,  thou  hast 
exhausted  thine  own  infinitude,  and  hast  no  more  to 
teach  them.^^  Surely  such  a  temper  is  to  be  fought 
against,  prayed  against,  both  in  ourselves,  and  in  the 
generation  in  which  we  live.  Surely  there  is  no 
reason  why  such  a  temper  should  overtake  old  age. 
There  may  be  reason  enough,  '^  in  the  nature  of 
things/^  For  that  which  is  of  nature  is  born  only  to 
decay  and  die.  But  in  man  there  is  more  than  dying 
nature  ;  there  is  spirit,  and  a  capability  of  spiritual 
and  everlasting  life,  which  renews  its  youth  like  the 
eaglets,  and  goes  on  from  strength  to  strength,  and 


38  ALEXANDETA  AND  HER   SCHOOLS.  [lect. 

wliicli_,  if  it  liave  its  autumns  and  its  winters,  lias  no 
less  its  ever-recurring  springs  and  summers  ;  if  it  lias 
its  Sabbaths,  finds  in  them  only  rest  and  refreshment 
for  coming  labour.  And  why  not  in  nations,  societies, 
scientific  schools  ?  These  too  are  not  merely  natural  : 
they  are  spiritual,  and  are  only  living  and  healthy  in 
j&s  far  as  they  are  in  harmony  with  spiritual,  unseen, 
and  everlasting  laws  of  God.  May  not  they,  too,  have 
a  capability  of  everlasting  life,  as  long  as  they  obey 
those  laws  in  faith,  and  patience,  and  humility  ?  We 
cannot  deny  the  analogy  between  the  individual  man 
and  these  societies  of  men.  We  cannot,  at  least,  deny 
the  analogy  between  them  in  growth,  decay,  and 
death.  May  we  not  have  hope  that  it  holds  good  also 
for  that  which  can  never  die  ;  and  that  if  they  do  die, 
as  this  old  Greek  society  did,  it  is  by  no  brute  natural 
necessity,  but  by  their  own  unfaithfulness  to  that 
which  they  knew,  to  that.^  which  they  ought  to  have 
known  ?  It  is  always  more  hopeful,  always,  as  I 
think,  more  philosophic,  to  throw  the  blame  of  failure 
on  man,  on  our  own  selves,  rather  than  on  God,  and 
the  perfect  law  of  His  universe.  At  least  let  us  be 
sure  for  ourselves,  that  such  an  old  age  as  befell 
this  Greek  society,  as  befalls  many  a  man  nowadays, 
need  not  be  our  lot.  Let  us  be  sure  that  earth  shows 
no  fairer  sight  than  the  old  man,  whose  worn-out 
brain  and  nerves  make  it  painful,  and  perhaps 
impossible,  to  produce  fresh  thought  himself  :  but 
who  can  yet  welcome  smilingly  and  joyfully  the 
fresh  thoughts  of  others  ;  who  keeps  unwearied  his 
faith  in  God^s  government  of  the  universe,  in  God's 
continual  education  of  the  human  race;  who  draws 
around  him  the  young  and  the  sanguine,  not  merely 
to  check  their  rashness  by  his  wise  cautions,  but  to 


s.]  THE  PTOLEMAIC   EEA.  39 

inspirit  their  sloth  by  the  memories  of  his  own  past 
victories ;  who  hands  over,  without  envy  or  repining, 
the  lamp  of  truth  to  younger  runners  than  himself, 
and  sits  contented  by,  bidding  the  new  generation  God 
speed  along  the  paths  untrodden  by  him,  but  seen  afar 
off  by  faith.  A  few  such  old  persons  have  I  seen,  both 
men  and  women ;  in  whom  the  young  heart  beat  pure 
and  fresh,  beneath  the  cautious  and  practised  brain  of 
age,  and  gray  hairs  which  were  indeed  a  crown  of  glory. 
A  few  such  have  I  seen ;  and  from  them  I  seemed  to 
learn  what  was  the  likeness  of  our  Father  who  is  in 
heaven.  To  such  an  old  age  may  He  bring  you  and 
me^  and  all  for  whom  we  are  bound  to  pray. 


fl.  IB  K  AR  Y^ 


LECTURE  II. 

THE  PTOLEMAIC  ERA. 
{Continued.) 

I  SAID  in  my  first  Lecture,  that  even  if  royal  influence  be 
profitable  for  the  prosecution  of  physical  science,  it 
cannot  be  profitable  for  art.  It  can  only  produce  a 
literary  age,  as  it  did  in  the  Ptolemaic  era  ;  a  generation 
of  innumerable  court-poets^  artificial  epigrammatists, 
artificial  idyllists,  artificial  dramatists  and  epicists ; 
above  all,  a  generation  of  critics.  Or  rather  shall  we 
say,  that  the  dynasty  was  not  the  cause  of  a  literary 
age,  but  only  its  correlative  ?  That  when  the  old 
Greeks  lost  the  power  of  being  free,  of  being  anything 
but  the  slaves  of  oriental  despots,  as  the  Ptolemies  in 
reality  were,  they  lost  also  the  power  of  producing  true 
works  of  art ;  because  they  had  lost  that  youthful 
vigour  of  mind  from  which  both  art  and  freedom 
sprang  ?  Let  the  case  be  as  it  will,  Alexandrian 
literature  need  not  detain  us  long — though,  alas !  it 
has.  detained  every  boy  who  ever  trembled  over  his 
Greek  grammar,  for  many  a  weary  year ;  and,  I  cannot 
help  suspecting,  has  been  the  main  cause  that  so  many 
young  men  who  have  spent  seven  years  in  learning 


f     ^^  ^  ^^>  U  A  u 

LECT.  II.]  THE   PTOLEMAIC   ERA.      '   V'  /•.'  f ;  ^  f4J'  ^^ 

Greek^  know  nothing  about  it  at  tlie  end.of  tiliB  geven*  . 
For  I  must  say,  that  as  far  as  we  can  see,  tliefee"*  * 
Alexandrian  pedants  were  thorough  pedants ;  very- 
polished  and  learned  gentlemen,  no  doubt,  and,  like 
Callimachus,  the  pets  of  princes  :  but  after  all,  men 
who  thought  that  they  could  make  up  for  not  writing 
great  works  themselves,  by  showing,  with  careful 
analysis  and  commentation,  how  men  used  to  write 
them  of  old,  or  rather  how  they  fancied  men  used 
to  write  them  ;  for,  consider,  if  they  had  really  known 
how  the  thing  was  done,  they  must  needs  have  been  able 
to  do  it  themselves.  Thus  Callimachus,  the  favourite  of 
Ptolemy  Philadelphus,  and  librarian  of  his  Museum,  is 
the  most  distinguished  grammarian,  critic,  and  poet  of 
his  day,  and  has  for  pupils  Eratosthenes,  Apollonius 
Rhodius,  Aristophanes  of  Byzantium,  and  a  goodly  list 
more.  He  is  an  encyclopsedia  in  himself.  There  is 
nothing  the  man  does  not  know,  or  probably,  if  we 
spoke  more  correctly,  nothing  he  does  not  know  about. 
He  writes  on  history,  on  the  Museum,  on  barbarous 
names,  on  the  wonders  of  the  world,  on  public  games, 
on  colonisation,  on  winds,  on  birds,  on  the  rivers  of  the 
world,  and — ominous  subject — a  sort  of  comprehensive 
history  of  Greek  literature,  with  a  careful  classification 
of  all  authors,  each  under  his  own  heading.  Greek 
literature  was  rather  in  the  sere  and  yellow  leaf,  be 
sure,  when  men  thought  of  writing  that  sort  of  thing 
about  it.  But  still,  he  is  an  encyclopaedic  man,  and, 
moreover,  a  poet.  He  writes  an  epic,  '^  Aitia,''^  in  four 
books,  on  the  causes  of  the  myths,  religious  ceremonies, 
and  so  forth — an  ominous  sign  for  the  myths  also,  and 
the  belief  in  them ;  also  a  Hecate,  Galatasa,  Glaucus — 
four  epics,  besides  comedies,  tragedies,  iambics,  chori- 
ambics,  elegies,  hymns,  epigrams  seventy-three — and  of 


42  ALEXANDRIA  AND   HEE   SCHOOLS.  [lect. 

these  last  alone  can  we  say  that  tliey  are  in  any  degree 
readable ;  and  they  are  courtly,  far-fetched,  neat,  and 
that  is  all.  Six  hymns  remain,  and  a  few  fragments  of 
the  elegies :  but  the  most  famous  elegy,  on  Berenice's 
hair,  is  preserved  to  us  only  in  a  Latin  paraphrase  of 
Catullus.  It  is  curious,  as  the  earliest  instance  we 
have  of  genuinely  ungenuine  Court  poetry,  and  of 
the  complimentary  lie  which  does  not  even  pretend 
to  be  true ;  the  flattery  which  will  not  take  the  trouble 
to  prevent  your  seeing  that  it  is  laughing  in  your 
face. 

Berenice  the  queen,  on  Ptolemy's  departure  to  the 
wars,  vows  her  beautiful  tresses  to  her  favourite  god- 
dess, as  the  price  of  her  husband's  safe  return;  and 
duly  pays  her  vow.  The  hair  is  hung  up  in  the  temple  : 
in  a  day  or  two  after  it  has  vanished.  Dire  is  the 
wrath  of  Ptolemy,  the  consternation  of  the  priests, 
the  scandal  to  religion ;  when  Conon,  the  court- 
astronomer,  luckily  searching  the  heavens,  finds  the 
missing  tresses  in  an  utterly  unexpected  place — as  a 
new  constellation  of  stars,  which  to  this  day  bears  the 
title  of  Coma  Berenices.  It  is  so  convenient  to  believe 
the  fact,  that  everybody  believes  it  accordingly;  and 
Callimaclms  writes  an  elegy  thereon,  in  which  the 
constellified,  or  indeed  deified  tresses,  address  in  most 
melodious  and  highly-finished  Greek,  bedizened  with 
concetto  on  concetto,  that  fair  and  sacred  head  whereon 
they  grew,  to  be  shorn  from  which  is  so  dire  a  sorrow, 
that  apotheosis  itself  can  hardly  reconcile  them  to  the 
parting. 

Worthy,  was  not  all  this,  of  the  descendants  of  the 
men  who  fought  at  Marathon  and  Thermopylas  ?  The 
old  Greek  civilisation  was  rotting  swiftly  down ;  while 
a  fire  of  God  was  preparing,  slowly  and  dimly,  in  that 


II.]  THE   PTOLEMAIC   EEA.  43 

unnoticed  Italian  town  of  Rome,  whicli  was  destined 
to  burn  up  tliat  dead  world,  and  all  its  works. 

Callimaclius^s  liymns,  tliose  may  read  wlio  list. 
They  are  liighly  finislied  enough;  the  work  of  a  man 
"wlio  knew  thoroughly  what  sort  of  article  lie  intended 
to  make,  and  what  were  the  most  approved  methods  of 
making  it.  Curious  and  cumbrous  mythological  lore 
comes  out  in  every  other  line.  The  smartness,  the  fine 
epithets,  the  recondite  conceits,  the  bits  of  effect,  are 
beyond  all  praise;  but  as  for  one  spark  of  life,  of 
poetry,  of  real  belief,  you  will  find  none ;  not  even  in 
that  famous  Lavacrum  Palladis  which.  Angelo  Poliziano 
thought  worth,  translating  into  Latin  elegiacs,  about 
th.e  same  time  that  the  learned  Florentine,  Antonio 
Maria  Salviano,  found  Berenice's  Hair  worthy  to  be 
paraphrased  back  from  Catullus'  Latin  into  Greek,  to 
give  the  world  some  faint  notion  of  the  inestimable 
and  incomparable  original.  They  must  have  had  much, 
time  on  tbeir  hands.  But  at  the  Eevival  of  Letters, 
-as  was  to  be  expected,  all  works  of  the  ancients,  good 
and  bad,  were  devoured  alike  with,  youthful  eagerness 
by  the  Medicis  and  the  Popes;  and  it  was  not,  we 
shall  see,  for  more  than  one  century  after,  that  men's 
taste  got  sufficiently  matured  to  distinguish  between 
Callimachus  and  the  Homeric  hymns,  or  between  Plato 
:and  Proclus.  Yet  Callimachus  and  his  fellows  had  an 
•effect  on  the  world.  His  writings,  as  well  as  those  of 
Philetas,  were  the  model  on  which  Ovid,  Propertius, 
Tibullus,  formed  themselves. 

And  so  I  leave  him,  with  two  hints.  If  any  one 
wishes  to  see  the  justice  of  my  censure,  let  him  read 
one  of  the  Alexandrian  hymns,  and  immediately  after 
it,  one  of  those  glorious  old  Homeric  hymns  to  the 
very  same  deities;  let  him  contrast  the  insincere  and 


44  ALEXANDRIA  AND   HER   SCHOOLS.  [lect. 

fulsome  idolatry  of  Callimaclius  witli  the  reverent^ 
simple  and  manful  anthropomorphism  of  the  Homerist 
— and  let  him  form  his  own  judgment. 

The  other  hint  is  this.  If  Callimaclius,  the  founder 
of  Alexandrian  literature,  be  such  as  he  is,  what  are 
his  pupils  likely  to  become,  at  least  without  some 
infusion  of  healthier  blood,  such  as  in  the  case  of  his 
Eoman  imitators  produced  a  new  and  not  altogether 
ignoble  school  ? 

Of  Lycophron,  the  fellow-grammarian  and  poet  of 
Callimachus,  we  have  nothing  left  but  the  Cassandra, 
a  long  iambic  poem,  stuffed  with  traditionary  learning, 
and  so  obscure,  that  it  obtained  for  him  the  surname 
of  (TK0T€Lv6s,  the  dark  one.  I  have  tried  in  vain  to  read 
it :  you,  if  you  will,  may  do  the  same. 

Philetas,  the  remaining  member  of  the  Alexandrian 
Triad,  seems  to  have  been  a  more  simple,  genial,  and 
graceful  spirit  than  the  other  two,  to  whom  he  was 
accordingly  esteemed  inferior.  Only  a  few  fragments 
are  left;  but  he  was  not  altogether  without  his  in- 
fluence, for  he  was,  as  I  have  just  said,  one  of  the  models 
on  which  Propertius  and  Ovid  formed  themselves  ;  and 
some,  indeed,  call  him  the  Father  of  the  Latin  elegy, 
with  its  terseness,  grace,  and  clear  epigrammatic  form 
of  thought,  and,  therefore,  in  a  great  degree,  of  our 
modern  eighteenth  century  poets ;  not  a  useless  excel- 
lence, seeing  that  it  is,  on  the  whole,  good  for  him 
who  writes  to  see  clearly  what  he  wants  to  say,  and  to 
be  able  to  make  his  readers  see  it  clearly  also.  And 
yet  one  natural  strain  is  heard  amid  all  this  artificial 
jingle — that  of  Theocritus.  It  is  not  altogether 
Alexandrian.  Its  sweetest  notes  were  learnt  amid  the 
chestnut  groves  and  orchards,  the  volcanic  glens  and 
sunny  pastures  of  Sicily ;  but  the  intercourse  between 


n.]  ,     THE   PTOLEMAIC   ERA.  45 

the  courts  of  Hiero  and  tlie  Ptolemies  seems  to  have 
been  continual.  Poets  and  philosophers  moved  freely 
from  one  to  the  other^  and  found  a  like  atmosphere  in 
both;  and  in  one  of  Theocritus^  idyls,  two  Sicilian 
gentlemen,  crossed  in  love,  agree  to  sail  for  Alexandria, 
and  volunteer  into  the  army  of  the  great  and  good 
king  Ptolemy,  of  whom  a  sketch  is  given  worth  read- 
ing ;  as  a  man  noble,  generous,  and  stately,  '^  know- 
ing well  who  loves  him,  and  still  better  who  loves 
him  not.^^  He  has  another  encomium  on  Ptolemy, 
more  laboured,  though  not  less  interesting :  but  the 
real  value  of  Theocritus  lies  in  his  power  of  landscape- 
painting. 

One  can  well  conceive  the  delight  which  his  idyls 
must  have  given  to  those  dusty  Alexandrians,  pent  up 
forever  between  sea  and  sand-hills,  drinking  the  tank- 
water,  and  never  hearing  the  sound  of  a  running  stream 
— whirling,  too,  forever,  in  all  the  bustle  and  intrigue 
of  a  great  commercial  and  literary  city.  Refreshing 
indeed  it  must  have  been  to  them  to  hear  of  those 
simple  joys  and  simple  sorrows  of  the  Sicilian  shepherd, 
in  a  land  where  toil  was  but  exercise,  and  mere  existence 
was  enjoyment.  To  them,  and  to  us  also.  I  believe 
Theocritus  is  one  of  the  poets  who  will  never  die.  He 
sees  men  and  things,  in  his  own  light  way,  truly ;  and 
he  describes  them  simply,  honestly,  with  little  careless 
touches  of  pathos  and  humour,  while  he  floods  his 
whole  scene  with  that  gorgeous  Sicilian  air,  like  one 
of  Titian^s  pictures;  with  still  sunshine,  whispering 
pines,  the  lizard  sleeping  on  the  wall,  and  the  sun- 
burnt cicala  shrieking  on  the  spray,  the  pears  and 
apples  dropping  from  the  orchard  bough,  the  goats 
clambering  from  crag  to  crag  after  the  cistus  and  the 
thyme^  the  brown  youths  and  wanton  lasses  singing 


46  .  ALEXANDRIA  AND   HER   SCHOOLS.  [lect. 

under  the  dark  chestnut  boughs^  or  by  the  leafy  arch 
of  some. 

Grot  nymph-haunted. 
Garlanded  over  with  vine,  and  acanthus,  and  clambering  roses, 
Cool  in  the  fierce  still  noon,  where  the  streams  glance  clear  in 
the  moss-beds ; 

and  here  and  there,  beyond  the  braes  and  meads,  blue 
glimpses  of  the  far-off  summer  sea ;  and  all  this  told 
in  a  language  and  a  metre  which  shapes  itself  almost 
unconsciously,  wave  after  wave,  into  the  most  luscious 
song.  Doubt  not  that  many  a  soul  then,  was  the 
simpler,  and  purer,  and  better,  for  reading  the  sweet 
singer  of  Syracuse.  He  has  his  immoralities ;  but 
they  are  the  immoralities  of  his  age  :  his  naturalness, 
his  sunny  calm  and  cheerfalness,  are  all  his  own. 

And  now,  to  leave  the  poets,  and  speak  of  those 
grammarians  to  whose  corrections  we  owe,  I  suppose, 
the  texts  of  the  Greek  poets  as  they  now  stand.  They 
seem  to  have  set  to  work  at  their  task  methodically 
enough,  under  the  direction  of  their  most  literary 
monarch,  Ptolemy  Philadelphus.  Alexander  the 
^tolian  collected  and  revised  the  tragedies,  Lycophron 
the  comedies,  Zenodotus  the  poems  of  Homer,  and  the 
other  poets  of  the  Epic  cycle,  now  lost  to  us.  Whether 
Homer  prospered  under  all  his  expungings,  alterations, 
and  transpositions — whether,  in  fact,  he  did  not  treat 
Homer  very  much  as  Bentley  wanted  to  treat  Milton,  is 
a  suspicion  which  one  has  a  right  to  entertain,  though 
it  is  long  past  the  possibility  of  proof.  Let  that  be 
as  it  may,  the  critical  business  grew  and  prospered. 
Aristophanes  of  Byzantium  wrote  glossaries  and  gram- 
mars, collected  editions  of  Plato  and  Aristotle,  aesthetic 
disquisitions  on  Homer — one  wishes  they  were  pre- 
served, for  the  sake  of  the  jest,  that  one  might  have 


II.]  THE   PTOLEMAIC   ERA.  4^ 

seen  an  Alexandrian  cockney^ s  views  of  AcMles  and 
Ulysses  !  Moreover,  in  a  hapless  moment^  at  least  for 
ns  moderns,  lie  invented  Greek  accents  ;  thereby,  I  fear, 
so  complicating  and  confusing  our  notions  of  Greek 
rhythm,  that  we  shall  never,  to  the  end  of  time,  be  able- 
to  guess  what  any  Greek  verse,  saving  the  old  Homeric- 
Hexameter,  sounded  like.  After  a  while,  too,  the- 
pedants,  according  to  their  wont,  began  quarrelling 
about  their  accents  and  their  recensions.  Moreover, 
there  was  a  rival  school  at  Pergamus  where  the  fame 
of  Crates  all  but  equalled  the  Egyptian  fame  of 
Aristarchus.  Insolent !  What  right  had  an  Asiatic 
to  know  anything  ?  So  Aristarchus  flew  furiously  on 
Crates,  being  a  man  of  plain  common  sense,  who  felt  a 
correct  reading  a  far  more  important  thing  than  any  of 
Crates^s  illustrations,  aesthetic,  historical,  or  mytholo- 
gical ;  a  preference  not  yet  quite  extinct,  in  one,  at 
least,  of  our  Universities.  "  Sir,^^  said  a  clever  Cam- 
bridge Tutor  to  a  philosophically  inclined  freshman, 
^^  remember,  that  our  business  is  to  translate  Plato 
correctly,  not  to  discover  his  meaning.''^  And,  para- 
doxical as  it  may  seem,  he  was  right.  Let  us  first  have 
accuracy,  the  merest  mechanical  accuracy,  in  every 
branch  of  knowledge.  Let  us  know  what  the  thing 
is  which  we  are  looking  at.  Let  us  know  the  exact 
words  an  author  uses.  Let  us  get  at  the  exact  value 
of  each  word  by  that  severe  induction  of  which 
Buttmann  and  the  great  Germans  have  set  such  nobla 
examples ;  and  then,  and  not  till  then,  we  may  begin 
to  talk  about  philosophy,  and  aesthetics,  and  the  rest. 
Very  probably  Aristarchus  was  right  in  his  dislike  of 
Crates's  preference  of  what  he  called  criticism,  to 
grammar.  Very  probably  he  connected  it  with  the 
other  object  of   his  especial   hatred,  that   fashion  of 


48  ALEXANDRIA  AND   HER   SCHOOLS.  [lect. 

interpreting  Homer  allegorically,  which,  was  spring- 
ing up  in  his  time,  and  which  afterwards  under  the 
Neoplatonists  rose  to  a  frantic  height,  and  helped  to 
destroy  in  them,  not  only  their  power  of  sound  judg- 
ment, and  of  asking  each  thing  patiently  what  it  was, 
but  also  any  real  reverence  for,  or  understanding  of, 
the  very  authors  over  whom  they  declaimed  and 
sentimentalised. 

Yes — the  Cambridge  Tutor  was  right.  Before  you 
can  tell  what  a  man  means,  you  must  have  patience 
to  find  out  what  he  says.  So  far  from  wishing  our 
grammatical  and  philological  education  to  be  less 
severe  than  ifc  is,  I  think  it  is  not  severe  enough.  In 
an  age  like  this — an  age  of  lectures,  and  of  popular 
literature,  and  of  self-culture,  too  often  random  and 
capricious,  however  earnest,  we  cannot  be  too  careful 
in  asking  ourselves,  in  compelling  others  to  ask  them- 
selves, the  meaning  of  every  word  which  they  use,  of 
every  word  which  they  read;  in  assuring  them,  whether 
they  will  believe  us  or  not,  that  the  moral,  as  well  as 
the  intellectual  culture,  acquired  by  translating  accu- 
rately one  dialogue  of  Plato,  by  making  out  thoroughly 
the  sense  of  one  chapter  of  a  standard  author,  is 
greater  than  they  will  get  from  skimming  whole  folios 
of  Schlegelian  esthetics,  resumes,  histories  of  philosophy, 
and  the  like  second-hand  information,  or  attending 
seven  lectures  a- week  till  their  lives^  end.  It  is  better 
to  hnow  one  thing,  than  to  hnow  about  ten  thousand 
things.  I  cannot  help  feeling  painfully,  after  reading 
those  most  interesting  Memoirs  of  Margaret  Fuller 
Ossoli,  that  the  especial  danger  of  this  time  is 
intellectual  sciolism,  vagueness,  sentimental  eclecti- 
cism— and  feeling,  too,  as  Socrates  of  old  believed, 
that  intellectual  vagueness  and  shallowness,  however 


II.]  THE   PTOLEMAIC   ERA.  49 

glib^  and  grand,  and  eloquent  it  may  seem^  is  inevitably 
the  parent  of  a  moral  vagueness  and  shallowness,  which 
may  leave  our  age  as  it  left  the  later  Greeks,  without 
an  absolute  standard  of  right  or  of  truth,  till  it  tries  to 
escape  from  its  own  scepticism,  as  the  later  Neoplatonists 
did,  by  plunging  desperately  into  any  fetish- worship- 
ping superstition  which  holds  out  to  its  wearied  and 
yet  impatient  intellect,  the  bait  of  decisions  already 
made  for  it,  of  objects  of  admiration  already  formed 
and  systematised. 

Therefore  let  us  honour  the  grammarian  in  his 
place ;  and,  among  others,  these  old  grammarians  of 
Alexandria ;  only  being  sure  that  as  soon  as  any  man 
begins,  as  they  did,  displaying  himself  peacock-fashion, 
boasting  of  his  science  as  the  great  pursuit  of  humanity, 
and  insulting  his  fellow- crafts  men,  he  becomes,  ipso 
facto,  unable  to  discover  any  more  truth  for  us,  having 
put  on  a  habit  of  mind  to  which  induction  is  impossible  • 
and  is  thenceforth  to  be  passed  by  with  a  kindly  but 
a  pitying  smile.  And  so,  indeed,  it  happened  with 
these  quarrelsome  Alexandrian  grammarians,  as  it  did 
with  the  Casaubons  and  Scaligers  and  Daciers  of  the 
last  two  centuries.  As  soon  as  they  began  quarrelling 
they  lost  the  power  of  discovering.  The  want  of  the 
inductive  faculty  in  their  attempts  at  philology  is 
utterly  ludicrous.  Most  of  their  derivations  of  words 
are  about  on  a  par  with  Jacob  Bohmen^s  etymology  of 
sulphur,  wherein  he  makes  sul,  if  I  recollect  right, 
signify  some  active  principle  of  combustion,  and  phur 
the  passive  one.  It  was  left  for  more  patient  and  less 
noisy  men,  like  Grimm,  Bopp,  and  Buttmann,  to  found 
a  science  of  philology,  to  discover  for  us  those  great 
laws  which  connect  modern  philology  with  history, 
ethnology,   physiology,   and   with    the   very   deepest 

VOL.  I. — H.  E.  B 


.$0  ALEXANDRIA  AND   HER   SCHOOLS.  [lect. 

questions  of  theology  itself.  And  in  the  meanwhile^ 
these  Alexandrians'  worthless  criticism  has  been  utterly 
swept  away;  while  their  real  work,  their  accurate  editions 
of  the  classics,  remain  to  us  as  a  precious  heritage.  So 
it  is  throughout  history :  nothing  dies  which  is  worthy  to 
live.  The  wheat  is  surely  gathered  into  the  garner, 
the  chaff  is  burnt  up  by  that  eternal  fire  which, 
happily  for  this  universe,  cannot  be  quenched  by  any 
art  of  man,  but  goes  on  forever,  devouring  without 
indulgence  all  the  folly  and  the  falsehood  of  the 
world. 

As  yet  you  have  heard  nothing  of  the  metaphysical 
schools  of  Alexandria ;  for  as  yet  none  have  existed,  in 
the  modern  acceptation  of  that  word.  Indeed^  I  am 
not  sure  that  I  must  not  tell  you  frankly,  that  none 
ever  existed  at  all  in  Alexandria,  in  that  same  modern 
acceptation.  Ritter,  I  think,  it  is  who  complains 
naively  enough,  that  the  Alexandrian  Neoplatonists  had 
a  bad  habit,  which  grew  on  them  more  and  more  as 
the  years  rolled  on,  of  mixing  up  philosophy  with 
theology,  and  so  defiling,  or  at  all  events  colouring, 
its  pure  transparency.  There  is  no  denying  the  impu- 
tation, as  I  shall  show  at  greater  length  in  my  next 
Lecture.  But  one  would  have  thought,  looking  back 
through  history,  that  the  Alexandrians  were  not  the 
only  philosophers  guilty  of  this  shameful  act  of  syn- 
cretism. Plato,  one  would  have  thought,  was  as  great 
a  sinner  as  they.  So  were  the  Hindoos.  In  spite  of 
all  their  logical  and  metaphysical  acuteness,  they 
were,  you  will  find,  unable  to  get  rid  of  the  notion 
that  theological  inquiries  concerning  Brahma,  Atma, 
Creeshna,  were  indissolubly  mixed  up  with  that  same 
logic  and  metaphysic.  The  Parsees  could  not  separate 
questions  about  Ahriman  and  Ormuzd  from  Kant^s 


51.]  THE   PTOLEMAIC  ERA.  '61 

three  great  philosopliic  problems :  What  is  Man  ? — 
What  may  be  known? — What  should  be  done? 
Neither^  indeed,  could  the  earlier  Greek  sages.  Not 
one  of  them,  of  any  school  whatsoever — from  the 
semi-mythic  Seven  Sages  to  Plato  and  Aristotle — but 
finds  it  necessary  to  consider  not  in  passing,  but  as 
the  great  object  of  research,  questions  concerning  the 
gods  :-— whether  they  are  real  or  not;  one  or  many; 
personal  or  impersonal;  cosmic,  and  parts  of  the 
universe,  or  organisers  and  rulers  of  it ;  in  relation  to 
man,  or  without  relation  to  him.  Even  in  those  who 
flatly  deny  the  existence  of  the  gods,  even  in  Lucretius 
himself,  these  questions  have  to  be  considered,  before 
the  question,  What  is  man  ?  can  get  any  solution  at 
all.  On  the  answer  given  to  them  is  found  to  depend 
intimately  the  answer  to  the  question.  What  is  the 
immaterial  part  of  man  ?  Is  it  a  part  of  nature,  or  of 
something  above  nature  ?  Has  he  an  immaterial  part 
at  all  ? — in  one  word.  Is  a  human  metaphysic  possible 
^t  all  ?  So  it  was  with  the  Greek  philosophers  of  old, 
even,  as  Asclepius  and  Ammonius  say,  with  Aristotle 
himself.  ^^  The  object  of  Aristotle^s  metaphysic,  '^ 
one  of  them  says,  "  is  theological.  Herein  Aristotle 
theologises."'^  And  there  is  no  denying  the  assertion. 
We  must  not  then  be  hard  on  the  Neoplatonists,  as  if 
they  were  the  first  to  mix  things  separate  from  the 
foundation  of  the  world.  I  do  not  say  that  theology 
and  metaphysic  are  separate  studies.  That  is  to  be 
ascertained  only  by  seeing  some  one  separate  them. 
And  when  I  see  them  separated,  I  shall  believe  them 
separable.  Only  the  separation  must  not  be  produced 
by  the  simple  expedient  of  denying  the  existence  of 
either  one  of  them,  or  at  least  of  ignoring  the  existence 
of  one  steadily  during  the  study  of  the  other.     If  they 

E  2 


52  ALEXANDRIA  AND  HER   SCHOOLS.  [lect. 

can  be  parted  without  injury  to  each,  ether,  let  them 
"be  parted  ;  and  till  then  let  us  suspend  hard  judgments 
on  the  Alexandrian  school  of  metaphysic,  and  also  on 
the  schools  of  that  curious  people  the  Jews,  who  had 
at  this  period  a  steadily  increasing  influence  on  the 
thought,  as  well  as  on  the  commercial  prosperity,  of 
Alexandria. 

You  must  not  suppose,  in  the  meanwhile,  that  the 
philosophers  whom  the  Ptolemies  collected  (as  they 
would  have  any  other  marketable  article)  by  liberal 
offers  of  pay  and  patronage,  were  such  men  as  the  old 
Seven  Sages  of  Greece,  or  as  Socrates,  Plato,  and 
Aristotle.  In  these  three  last  indeed,  Greek  thought 
reached  not  merely  its  greatest  height,  but  the  edge 
of  a  precipice,  down  which  it  rolled  headlong  after 
their  decease.  The  intellectual  defects  of  the  Greek 
mind,  of  which  I  have  already  spoken,  were  doubtless 
one  great  cause  of  this  decay :  but,  to  my  mind, 
moral  causes  had  still  more  to  do  with  it.  The  more 
cultivated  Greek  states,  to  judge  from  the  writings  of 
Plato,  had  not  been  an  over-righteous  people  during 
the  generation  in  which  he  lived.  And  in  the 
generations  which  followed,  they  became  an  altogether 
wicked  people ;  immoral,  unbelieving,  hating  good, 
and  delighting  in  all  which  was  evil.  And  it  was  in 
consequence  of  these  very  sins  of  theirs,  as  I  think, 
that  the  old  Hellenic  race  began  to  die  out  physically, 
and  population  throughout  Greece  to  decrease  with 
frightful  rapidity,  after  the  time  of  the  Achaoan  league. 
The  facts  are  well  known ;  and  foul  enough  they  are. 
When  the  Romans  destroyed  Greece,  God  was  just 
and  merciful.  The  eagles  were  gathered  together 
only  because  the  carrion  needed  to  be  removed  from 
the  face  of  God^s  earth.     And  at  the  time  of  which  I 


il]  the  PTOLEMAIC  ERA.  63 

now  speak,  tlie  signs  of  approacliing  death  were  fear- 
fully apparent.  Hapless  and  hopeless  enough  were 
the  clique  of  men  out  of  whom  the  first  two  Ptolemies 
hoped  to  form  a  school  of  philosophy ;  men  certainly 
clever  enough,  and  amusing  withal,  who  might  give 
the  kings  of  Egypt  many  a  shrewd  lesson  in  king-craft, 
and  the  ways  of  this  world,  and  the  art  of  profiting  by 
the  folly  of  fools,  and  the  selfishness  of  the  selfish  ;  or 
who  might  amuse  them,  in  default  of  fighting- cocks, 
by  puns  and  repartees,  and  battles  of  logic  ;  ^^  how  one 
thing  cannot  be  predicated  of  another,^ ^  or  "  how  the 
wise  man  is  not  only  to  overcome  every  misfortune, 
but  not  even  to  feel  it,^^  and  other  such  mighty 
questions,  which  in  those  days  hid  that  deep  unbelief 
in  any  truth  whatsoever  which  was  spreading  fast 
over  the  minds  of  men.  Such  word-splitters  were 
Stilpo  and  Diodorus,  the  slayer  and  the  slain.  They 
were  of  the  Megaran  school,  and  were  named  Dialectics ; 
and  also,  with  more  truth.  Eristics,  or  quarrellers. 
Their  clique  had  professed  to  follow  Zeno  and  Socrates 
in  declaring  the  instability  of  sensible  presumptions 
and  conclusions,  in  preaching  an  absolute  and  eternal 
Being.  But  there  was  this  deep  gulf  between  them 
and  Socrates ;  that  while  Socrates  professed  to  be 
seeking  for  the  Absolute  and  Eternal,  for  that  which 
is,  they  were  content  with  afiirming  that  it  exists. 
With  him,  as  with  the  older  sages,  philosophy  was  a 
search  for  truth.  With  them  it  was  a  scheme  of 
doctrines  to  be  defended.  And  the  dialectic  on  which 
they  prided  themselves  so  much,  differed  from  his 
accordingly.  He  used  it  inductively,  to  seek  out, 
under  the  notions  and  conceptions  of  the  mind,  certain 
absolute  truths  and  laws  of  which  they  were  only  the 
embodiment.     Words  and  thought  were  to  him  a  field 


64  ALEXANDRIA  AND   HER   SCHOOLS.  [lect. 

for  careful  and  reverent  induction^  as  the  phenomena 
of  nature  are  to  us  the  disciples  of  Bacon.  But  with 
these  hapless  Megarans,  who  thought  that  they  had 
found  that  for  which  Socrates  professed  only  to  seek 
dimly  and  afar  off,  and  had  got  it  safe  in  a  dogma,  pre- 
served as  it  were  in  spirits,  and  put  by  in  a  museum,  the 
great  use  of  dialectic  was  to  confute  opponents.  Delight 
in  their  own  subtlety  grew  on  them,  the  worship  not  of 
objective  truth,  but  of  the  forms  of  the  intellect  where- 
by it  may  be  demonstrated ;  till  they  became  the 
veriest  word-splitters,  rivals  of  the  old  sophists  whom 
their  master  had  attacked,  and  justiiSed  too  often 
Aristophanes^  calumny,  which  confounded  Socrates 
with  his  opponents,  as  a  man  whose  aim  was  to  make 
the  worse  appear  the  better  reason. 

We  have  here,  in  both  parties,  all  the  marks  of 
an  age  of  exhaustion,  of  scepticism,  of  despair  about 
finding  any  real  truth.  No  wonder  that  they  were 
superseded  by  the  Pyrrhonists,  who  doubted  all  things, 
and  by  the  Academy,  which  prided  itself  on  setting  up 
each  thing  to  knock  it  down  again ;  and  so  by  prudent 
and  well-bred  and  tolerant  qualifying  of  every  assertion^, 
neither  affirming  too  much,  nor  denying  too  much, 
keep  their  minds  in  a  wholesome — or  unwholesome — 
state  of  equilibrium,  as  stagnant  pools  are  kept,  that 
everything  may  have  free  toleration  to  rot  undisturbed. 

These  hapless  caricaturists  of  the  dialectic  of 
Plato,  and  the  logic  of  Aristotle,  careless  of  any  vital 
principles  or  real  results,  ready  enough  to  use  fallacies 
each  for  their  own  party,  and  openly  proud  of  their 
success  in  doing  so,  were  assisted  by  worthy  com- 
peers of  an  outwardly  opposite  tone  of  thought,  the 
Cyrenaics,  Theodorus  and  Hegesias.  With  their  clique, 
as  with  their  master  Aristippus,  the  senses  weue  tlie^ 


II.]  THE   PTOLEMAIC   ERA.  55 

only  avenues  to  knowledge ;  man  was  the  measure  of 
all  tilings ;  and  ^^  happiness  our  being^s  end  and  aim/' 
Theodorus  was  surnamed  the  Atheist ;  and^  it  seems, 
not  without  good  reason ;  for  he  taught  that  there  was 
no  absolute  or  eternal  difference  between  good  and 
evil ;  nothing  really  disgraceful  in  crimes ;  no  divine 
ground  for  laws^  which  according  to  him  had  been 
invented  by  men  to  prevent  fools  from  making  them- 
selves disagreeable ;  on  which  theory,  laws  must  be 
confessed  to  have  been  in  all  ages  somewhat  of  a 
failure.  He  seems  to  have  been,  like  his  master,  an 
impudent  light-hearted  fellow,  who  took  life  easily 
enough,  laughed  at  patriotism,  and  all  other  high-flown 
notions,  boasted  that  the  world  was  his  country,  and 
was  no  doubt  excellent  after-dinner  company  for  the 
great  king.  Hegesias,  his  fellow  Cyrenaic,  was  a  man 
of  a  darker  and  more  melancholic  temperament ;  and 
while  Theodorus  contented  himself  with  preaching  a 
comfortable  selfishness,  and  obtaining  pleasure,  made 
it  rather  his  study  to  avoid  pain.  Doubtless  both  their 
theories  were  popular  enough  at  Alexandria,  as  they 
were  in  France  during  the  analogous  period,  the  Siecle 
Louis  Quinze.  The  ''  Contrat  Social,^'  and  the  rest  of 
their  doctrines,  moral  and  metaphysical,  will  always 
have  their  admirers  on  earth,  as  long  as  that  variety 
of  the  human  species  exists  for  whose  especial  behoof 
Theodorus  held  that  laws  were  made ;  and  the  whole 
form  of  thought  met  with  great  approbation  in  after 
years  at  Rome,  where  Epicurus  carried  it  to  its  highest 
perfection.  After  that,  under  the  pressure  of  a  train 
of  rather  severe  lessons,  which  Gibbon  has  detailed  in 
his  "  Decline  and  Pall  of  the  Roman  Empire/'  little  or 
nothing  was  heard  of  it,  save  sotto  voce^  perhaps,  at 
the  Papal  courts  of  the  sixteenth  century.     To  revive 


56  ALEXANDRIA  AND   HER   SCHOOLS.  [lect. 

it  publicly,  or  at  least  as  mucli  of  it  as  could  be  borne 
by  a  world  now  for  seventeen  centuries  Christian,  was 
the  glory  of  the  eighteenth  century.  The  moral  scheme 
of  Theodorus  has  now  nearly  vanished  among  us,  at 
least  as  a  confessed  creed ;  and,  in  spite  of  the  authority 
of  Mr.  Lockers  great  and  good  name,  his  metaphysical 
scheme  is  showing  signs  of  a  like  approaching  dis- 
appearance. Let  us  hope  that  it  may  be  a  speedy  one ; 
for  if  the  senses  be  the  only  avenues  to  knowledge  ;  if 
man  be  the  measure  of  all  things  ;  and  if  law  have  not, 
as  Hooker  says,  her  fount  and  home  in  the  very  bosom 
of  God  himself,  then  was  Homer^s  Zeus  right  in 
declaring  man  to  be  "  the  most  wretched  of  all  the 
beasts  of  the  field.'^ 

And  yet  one  cannot  help  looking  with  a  sort  of  awe 
(I  dare  not  call  it  respect)  at  that  melancholic  faithless 
Hegesias.  Doubtless  he,  like  his  compeers,  and  indeed 
all  Alexandria  for  three  hundred  years,  cultivated 
philosophy  with  no  more  real  purpose  than  it  was 
cultivated  by  the  graceless  heaux-esjprits  of  Louis  XV.^s 
court,  and  with  as  little  practical  effect  on  morality  ; 
but  of  this  Hegesias  alone  it  stands  written,  that  his 
teaching  actually  made  men  do  something ;  and  more- 
over, do  the  most  solemn  and  important  thing  which 
any  man  can  do,  excepting  always  doing  right.  I 
must  confess,  however,  that  the  result  of  his  teaching 
took  so  unexpected  a  form,  that  the  reigning  Ptolemy, 
apparently  Philadelphus,  had  to  interfere  with  the 
sacred  right  of  every  man  to  talk  as  much  nonsense  as 
he  likes,  and  forbade  Hegesias  to  teach  at  Alexandria. 
For  Hegesias,  a  Cyrenaic  like  Theodorus,  but  a  rather 
more  morose  pedant  than  that  saucy  and  happy  scoffer, 
having  discovered  that  the  great  end  of  man  was  to 
avoid  pain,  also  discovered  (his  digestion  being  probably 


II.]  THE   PTOLEMAIC   ERA.  57 

in  a  disordered  state)  that  there  was  so  much  more 
pain  than  pleasure  in  the  world,  as  to  make  it  a 
thoroughly  disagreeable  place,  of  which  man  was  well 
rid  at  any  price.  Whereon  he  wrote  a  book  called 
'AnoKapTepap,  in  whicli  a  man  who  had  determined  to 
starve  himself,  preached  the  miseries  of  human  life, 
and  the  blessings  of  death,  with  such  overpowering 
force,  that  the  book  actually  drove  many  persons  to 
commit  suicide,  and  escape  from  a  world  which  was 
not  fit  to  dwell  in.  A  fearful  proof  of  how  rotten  the 
state  of  society  was  becoming,  how  desperate  the 
minds  of  men,  during  those  frightful  centuries  which 
immediately  preceded  the  Christian  era,  and  how  fast 
was  approaching  that  dark  chaos  of  unbelief  and 
unrighteousness,  which  Paul  of  Tarsus  so  analyses  and 
describes  in  the  first  chapter  of  his  Epistle  to  the 
Romans — when  the  old  light  was  lost,  the  old  faiths 
extinct,  the  old  reverence  for  the  laws  of  family  and 
national  life,  destroyed,  yea  even  the  natural  instincts 
themselves  perverted  ;  that  chaos  whose  darkness 
Juvenal,  and  Petronius,  and  Tacitus  have  proved,  in 
their  fearful  pages,  not  to  have  been  exaggerated  by 
the  more  compassionate  though  more  righteous  Jew. 

And  now  observe,  that  this  selfishness — this  whole- 
some state  of  equilibrium — this  philosophic  calm,  which 
is  really  only  a  lazy  pride,  was,  as  far  as  we  can  tell, 
the  main  object  of  all  the  schools  from  the  time  of 
Alexander  to  the  Christian  era.  We  know  very  little 
of  those  Sceptics,  Cynics,  Epicureans,  Academics, 
Peripatetics,  Stoics,  of  whom  there  has  been  so  much 
talk,  except  at  second-hand,  through  the  Romans, 
from  whom  Stoicism  in  after  ages  received  a  new  and 
not  ignoble  life.  But  this  we  do  know  of  the  later 
sects,  that  they  gradually  gave  up  the  search  for  truth, 


58  ALEXANDRIA  AND   HER   SCHOOLS.  [lect.. 

and  propounded  to  themselves  as  the  great  type  for  a 
philosopher^  How  shall  a  man  save  his  own  soul  from 
this  evil  world  ?  They  may  have  been  right ;  it  may 
have  been  the  best  thing  to  think  about  in  those  ex~ 
hausted  and  decaying  times :  but  it  was  a  question  of 
ethics^  not  of  philosophy^  in  the  sense  which  the  old 
Greek  sages  put  on  that  latter  word.  Their  object 
was^  not  to  get  at  the  laws  of  all  things,  but  to  fortify 
themselves  against  all  things,  each  according  to  his 
scheme,  and  so  to  be  self-sufficient  and  alone.  Even 
in  the  Stoics,  who  boldly  and  righteously  asserted  an 
immutable  morality,  this  was  the  leading  conception. 
As  has  been  well  said  of  them : 

"  If  we  reflect  how  deeply  the  feeling  of  an  intercourse 
between  men  and  a  divine  race  superior  to  themselves 
had  worked  itself  into  the  Greek  character — what  a 
number  of  fables,  some  beautiful,  some  impure,  it  had 
impregnated  and  procured  credence  for — how  it  sus- 
tained every  form  of  polity  and  every  system  of  laws, 
we  may  imagine  what  the  effects  must  have  been  of 
its  disappearance.  If  it  is  possible  for  any  man,  it  was 
not,  certainly,  possible  for  a  Greek,  to  feel  himself  con- 
nected by  any  real  bonds  with  his  fellow- creatures 
around  him,  while  he  felt  himself  utterly  separated  from 
any  being  above  his  fellow- creatures.  But  the  sense- 
of  that  isolation  would  affect  different  minds  very 
differently.  It  drove  the  Epicurean  to  consider  how 
he  might  make  a  world  in  which  he  should  live  comfort- 
ably, without  distracting  visions  of  the  past  and  future, 
and  the  dread  of  those  upper  powers  who  no  longer 
awakened  in  him  any  feelings  of  sympathy.  It  drove 
Zeno  the  Stoic  to  consider  whether  a  man  may  not 
find  enough  in  himself  to  satisfy  him,  though  what  is 
beyond  him  be  ever  so  unfriendly.  .  .  .  We  may  trace 


11.]  THE   PTOLEMAIC   ERA.  59 

in  the  productions  whicli  are  attributed  to  Zeno  a  very 
clear  indication  of  the  feeling  which  was  at  work  in  his 
mind.  He  undertook^  for  instance^  among  other  tasks^ 
to  answer  Plato^s  ^  Republic'  The  truth  that  a  man 
is  a  political  beings  which  informs  and  pervades  that 
book^  was  one  which  must  have  been  particularly- 
harassing  to  his  mind^  and  which  he  felt  must  be  got 
rid  of^  before  he  could  hope  to  assert  his  doctrine  of  a 
man^s  solitary  dignity .^^ 

Woe  to  the  nation  or  the  society  in  which  this 
individualising  and  separating  process  is  going  on  in 
the  human  mind  !  Whether  it  take  the  form  of  a 
religion  or  of  a  philosophy^  it  is  at  once  the  sign  and 
the  cause  of  senility^  decay^  and  death.  If  man  begins 
to  forget  that  he  is  a  social  beings  a  member  of  a  body, 
and  that  the  only  truths  which  can  avail  him  anything, 
the  only  truths  which  are  worthy  objects  of  his 
philosophical  search,  are  those  which  are  equally  true 
for  every  man,  which  will  equally  avail  every  man, 
which  he  must  proclaim,  as  far  as  he  can,  to  every 
man,  from  the  proudest  sage  to  the  meanest  outcast, 
he  enters,  I  believe,  into  a  lie,  and  helps  forward  the 
dissolution  of  that  society  of  which  he  is  a  member. 
I  care  little  whether  what  he  holds  be  true  or  not.  If 
it  be  true,  he  has  made  it  a  lie  by  appropriating  it 
proudly  and  selfishly  to  himself,  and  by  excluding 
others  from  it.  He  has  darkened  his  own  power  of 
vision  by  that  act  of  self-appropriation,  so  that  even 
if  he  sees  a  truth,  he  can  only  see  it  refractedly,  dis- 
coloured by  the  medium  of  his  own  private  likes  and 
dislikes,  and  fulfils  that  great  and  truly  philosophic 
law,  that  he  who  loveth  not  his  brother  is  in  darkness, 
and  knoweth  not  whither  he  goeth.  And  so  it  befell 
those  old  Greek  schools.     It  is  out  of  our  path  to  follow 


60  ALEXANDRIA  AND   HER   SCHOOLS.  [lect. 

them  to  Italy,  where  sturdy  old  Eomaii  patriots  cursed 
them,  and  with  good  reason,  as  corrupting  the  morals 
of  the  young.  Our  business  is  with  Alexandria  ;  and 
there,  certainly,  they  did  nothing  for  the  elevation 
of  humanity.  What  culture  they  may  have  given,  pro- 
bably helped  to  make  the  Alexandrians,  what  Csesar  calls 
them,  the  most  ingenious  of  all  nations  :  but  righteous 
or  valiant  men  it  did  not  make  them.  When,  after 
the  three  great  reigns  of  Soter,  Philadelphus,  and 
Euergetes,  the  race  of  the  Ptolemies  began  to  wear 
itself  out,  Alexandria  fell  morally^  as  its  sovereigns 
fell ;  and  during  a  miserable  and  shameful  decline  of 
a  hundred  and  eighty  years,  sophists  wrangled,  pedants 
fought  over  accents  and  readings  with  the  true  odium 
grammaticum,  and  kings  plunged  deeper  and  deeper 
into  the  abysses  of  luxury  and  incest,  laziness  and 
cruelty,  till  the  flood  came,  and  swept  them  all  away. 
Cleopatra,  the  Helen  of  Egypt,  betrayed  her  country 
to  the  Roman ;  and  thenceforth  the  Alexandrians 
became  slaves  in  all  but  name. 

And  now  that  Alexandria  has  become  a  tributary 
province,  is  it  to  share  the  usual  lot  of  enslaved  countries 
and  lose  all  originality  and  vigour  of  thought  ?  Not  so. 
From  this  point,  strangely  enough,  it  begins  to  have  a 
philosophy  of  its  own.  Hitherto  it  has  been  importing 
Greek  thought  into  Egypt  and  Syria,  even  to  the 
furthest  boundaries  of  Persia ;  and  the  whole  East  has 
become  Greek:  but  it  has  received  little  in  return. 
The  Indian  Gymnosophists,  or  Brahmins,  had  little  or 
no  effect  on  Greek  philosophy,  except  in  the  case  of 
Pyrrho  :  the  Persian  Dualism  still  less.  The  Egyptian 
symbolic  nature-worship  had  been  too  gross  to  be 
regarded  by  the  cultivated  Alexandrian  as  anything 
but  a  barbaric  superstition.     One  eastern  nation  had 


II.]  THE   PTOLEMAIC  ERA.  61 

intermingled  closely  witli  the  Macedonian  race,  and 
from  it  Alexandrian  thought  received  a  new  impulse. 

I  mentioned  in  my  first  lecture  the  conciliatory 
policy  which  the  Ptolemies  had  pursued  toward  the 
Jews.  Soter  had  not  only  allowed  but  encouraged 
them  to  settle  in  Alexandria  and  Egypt,  granting  them 
the  same  political  privileges  with  the  Macedonians 
and  other  Greeks.  Soon  they  built  themselves  a 
temple  there,  in  obedience  to  some  supposed  prophecy 
in  their  sacred  writings,  which  seems  most  probably 
to  have  been  a  wilful  interpolation.  Whatsoever  value 
we  may  attach  to  the  various  myths  concerning  the 
translation  of  their  Scriptures  into  Greek,  there  can 
be  no  doubt  that  they  were  translated  in  the  reign  of 
Soter,  and  that  the  exceedingly  valuable  Septuagint 
version  is  the  work  of  that  period.  Moreover,  their 
numbers  in  Alexandria  were  very  great.  When 
Amrou  took  Constantinople  in  a.d.  640,  there  were 
40,000  Jews  in  it;  and  their  numbers  during  the 
Ptolemaic  and  Roman  periods,  before  their  temporary 
expulsion  by  Cyril  about  412,  were  probably  greater; 
and  Egypt  altogether  is  said  to  have  contained  200,000 
Jews.  They  had  schools  there,  which  were  so  esteemed 
by  their  whole  nation  throughout  the  East,  that  the 
Alexandrian  Rabbis,  the  Light  of  Israel,  as  they  were 
called,  may  be  fairly  considered  as  the  centre  of  Jewish 
thought  and  learning  for  several  centuries. 

We  are  accustomed,  and  not  without  reason,  to 
think  with  some  contempt  of  these  old  Rabbis.  Rab- 
binism,  Cabbalism,  are  become  by- words  in  the  mouths 
of  men.  It  may  be  instructive  for  us — it  is  certainly 
necessary  for  us,  if  w^e  wish  to  understand  Alexandria — 
to  examine  a  little  how  they  became  so  fallen. 

Their  philosophy  took  its  stand,  as  you  all  know^ 


62  ALEXANDRIA.  AND   HER   SCHOOLS.  [lect. 

on  certain  ancient  books  of  their  people;  histories, 
laws,  poems,  philosophical  treatises,  which  all  have  one 
element  peculiar  to  themselves,  namely,  the  assertion 
of  a  living  personal  Ruler  and  Teacher,  not  merely  of 
the  Jewish  race,  but  of  all  the  nations  of  the  earth. 
After  the  return  of  their  race  from  Babylon,  their  own 
records  give  abundant  evidence  that  this  strange  people 
became  the  most  exclusive  and  sectarian  which  the 
world  ever  saw.  Into  the  causes  of  that  exclusiveness 
I  will  not  now  enter  ;  suffice  it  to  say,  that  it  was  par- 
donable enough  in  a  people  asserting  Monotheism  in 
the  midst  of  idolatrous  nations,  and  who  knew,  from 
•experience  even  more  bitter  than  that  which  taught 
Plato  and  Socrates,  how  directly  all  those  popular 
idolatries  led  to  every  form  of  baseness  and  immorality. 
But  we  may  trace  in  them,  from  the  date  of  their 
return  from  Babylon,  especially  from  their  settlement 
in  Alexandria,  a  singular  change  of  opinion.  In  pro- 
portion as  they  began  to  deny  that  their  unseen 
personal  Ruler  had  anything  to  do  with  the  Gentiles — '■ 
the  nations  of  the  earth,  as  they  called  them — in  pro- 
portion as  they  considered  themselves  as  His  only 
subjects — or  rather,  Him  and  His  guidance  as  their 
own  private  property — exactly  in  that  proportion  they 
began  to  lose  all  living  or  practical  belief  that  He  did 
guide  them.  He  became  a  being  of  the  past ;  one 
who  had  taught  and  governed  their  forefathers  in  old 
times  :  not  one  who  was  teaching  and  governing  them 
now.  I  beg  you  to  pay  attention  to  this  curious  result ; 
because  you  will  see,  I  think,  the  very  same  thing 
occurring  in  two  other  Alexandrian  schools,  of  which 
I  shall  speak  hereafter. 

The  result  to  these  Rabbis  was,  that  the  inspired 
books   which   spoke   of    this   Divine    guidance    and 


II.]  THE   PTOLEMAIC   ERA.  €S 

government  became  objects  of  superstitious  reverence, 
just  in  proportion  as  they  lost  all  understanding  of 
tlieir  real  value  and  meaning.  Nevertheless^  this  too 
produced  good  results ;  for  the  greatest  possible  care 
was  taken  to  fix  the  Canon  of  these  books ;  to  settle, 
as  far  as  possible,  the  exact  time  at  which  the  Divine 
guidance  was  supposed  to  have  ceased ;  after  which  it 
was  impious  to  claim  a  Divine  teaching;  when  their 
sages  were  left  to  themselves,  as  they  fancied,  with  a 
complete  body  of  knowledge,  on  which  they  were 
henceforth  only  to  comment.  Thus,  whether  or  not 
they  were  right  in  supposing  that  the  Divine  Teacher 
had  ceased  to  teach  and  inspire  them,  they  did  infinite 
service  by  marking  out  for  us  certain  writers  whom 
He  had  certainly  taught  and  inspired.  No  doubt  they 
were  right  in  their  sense  of  the  awful  change  which 
had  passed  over  their  nation.  There  was  an  infinite 
difference  between  them  and  the  old  Hebrew  writers. 
They  had  lost  something  which  those  old  prophets  pos- 
sessed, I  invite  you  to  ponder,  each  for  himself,  on 
the  causes  of  this  strange  loss ;  bearing  in  mind  that 
they  lost  their  forefathers'  heirloom,  exactly  in  pro- 
portion as  they  began  to  believe  it  to  be  their  exclusive 
possession,  and  to  deny  other  human  beings  any  right 
to  or  share  in  it.  It  may  have  been  that  the  light 
given  to  their  forefathers  had,  as  they  thought,  really 
departed.  It  may  have  been,  also,  that  the  light  was 
there  all  around  them  still,  as  bright  as  ever,  but  that 
they  would  not  open  their  eyes  and  behold  it ;  or  rather, 
could  not  open  them,  because  selfishness  and  pride 
had  sealed  them.  It  may  have  been,  that  inspiration 
was  still  very  near  them  too,  if  their  spirits  had  been 
willing  to  receive  it.  But  of  the  fact  of  the  change 
there  was  no  doubt.     For  the  old  Hebrew  seers  were 


64  ALEXANDRIA  AND   HEE   SCHOOLS.  [lect. 

men  dealing  witli  the  loftiest  and  deepest  laws  :  the 
Rabbis  were  shallow  pedants.  The  old  Hebrew  seers 
were  righteous  and  virtuous  men  :  the  Eabbis  became, 
in  due  time,  some  of  the  worst  and  wickedest  men 
who  ever  trod  this  earth. 

Thus  they  too  had  their  share  in  that  downward 
career  of  pedantry  which  we  have  seen  characterise  the 
whole  past  Alexandrine  age.  They,  like  Zenodotus 
and  Aristarchus,  were  commentators,  grammarians, 
sectarian  disputers  :  they  were  not  thinkers  or  actors. 
Their  inspired  books  were  to  them  no  more  the  words 
of  living  human  beings  who  had  sought  for  the  Absolute 
Wisdom,  and  found  it  after  many  sins  and  doubts  and 
sorrows.  The  human  writers  became  in  their  eyes  the 
puppets  and  mouthpieces  of  some  magical  influence, 
not  the  disciples  of  a  living  and  loving  person.  The 
book  itself  was,  in  their  belief,  not  in  any  true  sense 
inspired,  but  magically  dictated — by  what  power  they 
cared  not  to  define.  His  character  was  unimportant  to 
them,  provided  He  had  inspired  no  nation  but  their 
own.  But,  thought  they,  if  the  words  were  dictated, 
each  of  them  must  have  some  mysterious  value.  And 
if  each  word  had  a  mysterious  value,  why  not  each 
letter  ?  And  how  could  they  set  limits  to  that  mys- 
terious value  ?  Might  not  these  words,  even  rearrange- 
ments of  the  letters  of  them,  be  useful  in  protecting 
them  against  the  sorceries  of  the  heathen,  in  driving 
away  those  evil  spirits,  or  evoking  those  good  spirits, 
who,  though  seldom  mentioned  in  their  early  records, 
had  after  their  return  from  Babylon  begun  to  form  an 
important  part  of  their  unseen  world?  For  as  they  had 
lost  faith  in  the  One  Preserver  of  their  race,  they  had 
filled  up  the  void  by  a  ponderous  demonology  of 
innumerable  preservers.     This  process  of  thought  was 


n.]  THE   PTOLEMAIC   PERIOD.  65 

not  confined  to  Alexandria.  Dr.  Layard^  in  Ms  last 
book  on  Nineveh^  gives  some  curious  instances  of  its 
prevalence  among  tliem  at  an  earlier  period,  well  worth, 
your  careful  study.  But  it  was  at  Alexandria  that  the 
Jewish  Cabbalism  formed  itself  into  a  system.  It  was 
there  that  the  Jews  learnt  to  become  the  jugglers  and 
magic-mongers  of  the  whole  Roman  world,  till  Claudius 
had  to  expel  them  from  Rome,  as  pests  to  rational  and 
moral  society. 

And  yet,  among  these,  hapless  pedants  there 
lingered  nobler  thoughts  and  hopes.  They  could  not 
read  the  glorious  beirlooms  of  their  race  without 
finding  in  them  records  of  antique  greatness  and  virtue, 
of  old  deliverances  worked  for  their  forefathers ;  and 
what  seemed  promises,  too,  that  that  greatness  should 
return.  The  notion  that  those  promises  were  con- 
ditional; that  they  expressed  eternal  moral  laws,  and 
declared  the  consequences  of  obeying  those  laws,  they 
had  lost  long  ago.  By  looking  on  themselves  as 
exclusively  and  arbitrarily  favoured  by  Heaven,  they 
were  ruining  their  own  moral  sense.  Things  were  not 
right  or  wrong  to  them  because  Right  was  eternal  and 
divine,  and  Wrong  tbe  transgression  of  that  eternal 
right.  How  could  that  be?  For  then  the  right  things 
the  Gentiles  seemed  to  do  would  be  right  and  divine ; 
— and  that  supposition  in  their  eyes  was  all  but 
impious.  None  could  do  righfc  but  themselves,  for  they 
only  knew  the  law  of  God.  So,  right  with  them  had 
no  absolute  or  universal  ground,  but  was  reduced  in 
their  minds  to  the  performance  of  certain  acts  com- 
manded exclusively  to  them — a  form  of  ethics  which 
rapidly  sank  into  the  most  petty  and  frivolous  casuistry 
as  to  the  outward  performance  of  those  acts.  The 
sequel  of  those  ethics  is  known  to  all  the  world,  in  the 

VOL.  I. — H.  E.  V 


66  ALEXANDRIA  AND   HER   SCHOOLS.  [lect. 

spectacle  of  the  most  unrivalled  religiosity^  and 
scrupulous  respectability,  combined  with,  a  more  utter 
absence  of  moral  sense,  in  their  most  cultivated  and 
learned  men,  than  the  world  has  ever  beheld  before  or 
since. 

In  such  a  state  of  mind  it  was  impossible  for  them 
to  look  on  their  old  prophets  as  true  seers,  beholding 
and  applying  eternal  moral  laws,  and,  therefore,  seeing 
the  future  in  the  present  and  in  the  past.  They  must 
be  the  mere  utterers  of  an  irreversible  arbitrary  fate ; 
and  that  fate  must,  of  course,  be  favourable  to  their 
nation.  So  now  arose  a  school  who  picked  out  from 
their  old  prophets  every  passage  which  could  be  made 
to  predict  their  future  glory,  and  a  science  which 
settled  when  that  glory  was  to  return.  By  the 
arbitrary  rules  of  criticism  a  prophetic  day  was  defined 
to  mean  a  year;  a  week,  seven  years.  The  most  simple 
and  human  utterances  were  found  to  have  recondite 
meanings  relative  to  their  future  triumph  over 
the  heathens  whom  they  cursed  and  hated.  If  any 
of  you  ever  come  across  the  popular  Jewish  inter- 
pretations of  The  Song  of  Solomon,  you  will  there  see 
the  folly  in  which  acute  and  learned  men  can  indulge 
themselves  when  they  have  lost  hold  of  the  belief  in 
anything  really  absolute  and  eternal  and  moral,  and 
have  made  Pate,  and  Time,  and  Self,  their  real  deities. 
But  this  dream  of  a  future  restoration  was  in  no  wise 
ennobled,  as  far  as  we  can  see,  with  any  desire  for  a 
moral  restoration.  They  believed  that  a  person  would 
appear  some  day  or  other  to  deliver  them.  Even  they 
were  happily  preserved  by  their  sacred  books  from  the 
notion  that  deliverance  was  to  be  found  for  them,  or 
for  any  man,  in  an  abstraction  or  notion  ending  in 
-ation  or  -ality.     In  justice  to  them  it  must  be  said,. 


II.]  THE  PTOLEMAIC   PERIOD.  67 

tliat  they  were  too  wise  to  believe  that  personal 
qualities,  such  as  power,  will,  love,  righteousness,  could 
reside  in  any  but  in  a  person,  or  be  manifested  except 
by  a  person.  And  among  the  earlier  of  them  the  belief 
may  have  been,  that  the  ancient  unseen  Teacher  of 
their  race  would  be  their  deliverer :  but  as  they  lost  the 
thought  of  Him,  the  expected  Deliverer  became  a  mere 
human  being:  or  rather  not  a  human  being;  for  as  they 
lost  their  moral  sense,  they  lost  in  the  very  deepest 
meaning  their  humanity,  and  forgot  what  man  was  like 
till  they  learned  to  look  only  for  a  conqueror;  a  mani- 
festation of  power,  and  not  of  goodness;  a  destroyer  of 
the  hated  heathen,  who  was  to  establish  them  as  the 
tyrant  race  of  the  whole  earth.  On  that  fearful  day 
on  which,  for  a  moment,  they  cast  away  even  that  last 
dream,  and  cried,  ^^We  have  no  king  but  Ca3sar,^^ 
they  spoke  the  secret  of  their  hearts.  It  was  a  CaDsar, 
a  Jewish  Oeesar,  for  whom  they  had  been  longing  for 
centuries.  And  if  they  could  not  have  such  a  deliverer, 
they  would  have  none :  they  would  take  up  with  the 
best  embodiment  of  brute  Titanic  power  which  they 
could  find,  and  crucify  the  embodiment  of  Righteous- 
ness and  Love.  Amid  all  the  metaphysical  schools  of 
Alexandria,  I  know  none  so  deeply  instructive  as  that 
school  of  the  Rabbis,  ^^the  glory  of  Israel.''^ 

But  you  will  say :  ^^  This  does  not  look  like  a  school 
likely  to  regenerate  Alexandrian  thought.''^  True :  and 
yet  it  did  regenerate  it,  both  for  good  and  for  evil;  for 
these  men  had  among  them  and  preserved  faithfully 
enough  for  all  practical  purposes,  the  old  literature  of 
their  race ;  a  literature  which  I  firmly  believe,  if  I  am 
to  trust  the  experience  of  1900  years,  is  destined  to 
explain  all  other  literatures  ;  because  it  has  firm  hold 
of  the  one  eternal  root-idea  which  gives  life,  meaning, 

F  2 


68  ALEXANDRIA  AND   HER   SCHOOLS..       [lect.  ii. 

Divine  sanction^  to  every  germ  or  fragment  of  human 
truth  which  is  in  any  of  them.  It  did  so,  at  least, 
in  Alexandria  for  the  Greek  literature.  About  the 
Christian  era,  a  cultivated  Alexandria!!  Jew,  a  disciple 
of  Plato  and  of  Aristotle,  did  seem  to  himself  to  find 
in  the  sacred  books  of  his  nation  that  which  agreed 
with  the  deepest  discoveries  of  Greek  philosophy ; 
which  explained  and  corroborated  them.  And  his 
announcement  of  this  fact,  weak  and  defective  as  it 
was,  had  the  most  enormous  and  unexpected  results. 
The  father  of  New  Platonism  was  Philo  the  Jew. 


^'  ^  (''  It .    ■ 


LECTURE  III. 

NEOPLATONISM. 

We  now  approacli  the  period  in  whicli  Alexandria 
began  to  have  a  philosophy  of  its  own — to  be,  indeed^ 
the  leader  of  human  thought  for  several  centuries. 

I  shall  enter  on  this  branch  of  my  subject  with 
some  fear  and  trembling ;  not  only  on  account  of  my 
own  ignorance,  but  on  account  of  the  great  difficulty 
of  handling  it  without  trenching  on  certain  contro- 
versial subjects  which  are  rightly  and  wisely  forbidden 
here.  For  there  was  not  one  school  of  Metaphysic  at 
Alexandria  :  there  were  two ;  which,  during  the  whole 
period  of  their  existence,  were  in  internecine  struggle 
with  each  other,  and  yet  mutually  borrowing  from 
each  other ;  the  Heathen,  namely,  and  the  Christian. 
And  you  cannot  contemplate,  still  less  can  you  under- 
stand, the  one  without  the  other.  Some  of  late  years 
have  become  all  but  unaware  of  the  existence  of  that 
Christian  school;  and  the  word  Philosophy,  on  the 
authority  of  Gibbon,  who,  however  excellent  an 
authority  for  facts,  knew  nothing  about  Philosophy, 
and  cared  less,  has  been  used  exclusively  to  express 


10  ALEXANDRIA   AND   HER   SCHOOLS.  [lect. 

heathen  tHouglit ;  a  misnomer  whicli  in  Alexandria 
would  have  astonished  Plotinus  or  Hypatia  as  much  as 
it  would  Clement  or  Origen.  I  do  not  say  that  there 
is,  or  ought  to  be,  a  Christian  Metaphysic.  I  am 
speaking,  as  you  know,  merely  as  a  historian,  dealing 
with  facts ;  and  I  say  that  there  was  one ;  as  profound, 
as  scientific,  as  severe,  as  that  of  the  Pagan  Neopla- 
tonists ;  starting  indeed,  as  I  shall  show  hereafter,  on 
many  points  from  common  ground  with  theirs.  One 
can  hardly  doubt,  I  should  fancy,  that  many  parts  of 
St.  John^s  Gospel  and  Epistles,  whatever  view  we  may 
take  of  them,  if  they  are  to  be  called  anything,  are  to 
be  called  metaphysic  and  philosophic.  And  one  can 
no  more  doubt  that  before  writing  them  he  had 
studied  Philo,  and  was  expanding  Philo^s  thought  in 
the  direction  which  seemed  fit  to  him,  than  we  can 
doubt  it  of  the  earlier  Neoplatonists.  The  technical 
language  is  often  identical;  so  are  the  primary  ideas 
from  which  he  starts,  howsoever  widely  the  conclusions 
may  differ.  If  Plotinus  considered  himself  an  intel- 
lectual disciple  of  Plato,  so  did  Origen  and  Clemens. 
And  I  must,  as  I  said  before,  speak  of  both,  or  of 
neither.  My  only  hope  of  escaping  delicate  ground 
lies  in  the  curious  fact,  that  rightly  or  wrongly,  the 
form  in  which  Christianity  presented  itself  to  the  old 
Alexandrian  thinkers  was  so  utterly  different  from  the 
popular  conception  of  it  in  modern  England,  that  one 
may  very  likely  be  able  to  tell  what  little  one  knows 
about  it,  almost  without  mentioning  a  single  doctrine 
which  now  influences  the  religious  world. 

But  far  greater  is  my  fear,  that  to  a  modern  British 
auditory,  trained  in  the  school  of  Locke,  much  of 
ancient  thought,  heathen  as  well  as  Christian,  may 
seem  so   utterly  the  product  of   the  imagination,  so 


III.]  NEOPLATONISM.  71 

utterly  without  any  corresponding  reality  in  the 
universe^  as  to  look  like  mere  unintelligible  madness. 
Stilly  I  must  try ;  only  entreating  my  hearers  to  con- 
sider^ that  how  much  soever  we  may  honour  Locke 
and  his  great  Scotch  followers,  we  are  not  bound  to 
believe  them  either  infallible,  or  altogether  world- 
embracing  ;  that  there  have  been  other  methods  than 
theirs  of  conceiving  the  Unseen;  that  the  common 
ground  from  which  both  Christian  and  heathen  Alex- 
andrians start,  is  not  merely  a  private  vagary  of  their 
own,  but  one  which  has  been  accepted  undoubtingly, 
under  so  many  various  forms,  by  so  many  different 
races,  as  to  give  something  of  an  inductive  probability 
that  it  is  not  a  mere  dream,  but  may  be  a  right  and  true 
instinct  of  the  human  mind.  I  mean  the  belief  that 
the  things  which  we  see — nature  and  all  her  pheno- 
mena— are  temporal,  and  born  only  to  die;  mere 
shadows  of  some  unseen  realities,  from  whom  their 
laws  and  life  are  derived;  while  the  eternal  things 
which  subsist  without  growth,  decay,  or  change,  the 
only  real,  only  truly  existing  things,  in  short,  are 
certain  things  which  are  not  seen ;  inappreciable  by 
sense,  or  understanding,  or  imagination,  perceived 
only  by  the  conscience  and  the  reason.  And  that^ 
again,  the  problem  of  philosophy,  the  highest  good 
for  man,  that  for  the  sake  of  which  death  were  a  gain, 
without  which  life  is  worthless,  a  drudgery,  a  degra- 
dation, a  failure,  and  a  ruin,  is  to  discover  what  those 
unseen  eternal  things  are,  to  know  them,  possess 
them,  be  in  harmony  with  them,  and  thereby  alone  to 
rise  to  any  real  and  solid  power,  or  safety,  or  noble- 
ness. It  is  a  strange  dream.  But  you  will  see  that 
it  is  one  which  does  not  bear  much  upon  "points 
of  controversy,^^  any  more  than  on  "  Lockers  philo- 


^2  ALEXANDRIA  AND   HER   SCHOOLS.  [lect. 

sophj  ;  '^  nevertlieless,  when  we  find  this  same  strange 
dream  arising,  apparently  without  intercommunion  of 
thought,  among  the  old  Hindoos,  among  the  Greeks^ 
among  the  Jews  ;  and  lastly,  when  we  see  it  springing 
again  in  the  Middle  Age,  in  the  mind  of  the  almost 
forgotten  author  of  the  ^^  Deutsche  Theologie,^^  and 
so  becoming  the  parent,  not  merely  of  Luther^s 
deepest  belief,  or  of  the  German  mystic  schools  of  the 
seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries,  but  of  the  great 
German  Philosophy  itself  as  developed  by  Kant,  and 
Fichte,  and  Schelling,  and  Hegel,  we  must  at  least 
confess  it  to  be  a  popular  delusion,  if  nothing  better, 
vast  enough  and  common  enough  to  be  worth  a  little 
patient  investigation,  wheresoever  we  may  find  it 
stirring  the  human  mind. 

But  I  have  hope,  still,  that  I  may  find  sympathy 
and  comprehension  among  some,  at  least,  of  my 
audience,  as  I  proceed  to  examine  the  ancient  realist 
schools  of  Alexandria,  on  account  of  their  knowledge 
of  the  modern  realist  schools  of  Germany.  For  I 
cannot  but  see,  that  a  revulsion  is  taking  place  in  the 
thoughts  of  our  nation  upon  metaphysic  subjects,  and 
that  Scotland,  as  usual,  is  taking  the  lead  therein. 
That  most  illustrious  Scotchman,  Mr.  Thomas  Carlyle, 
first  vindicated  the  great  German  Realists  from  the 
vulgar  misconceptions  about  them  which  were  so 
common  at  the  beginning  of  this  century,  and  brought 
the  minds  of  studious  men  to  a  more  just  appreciation 
of  the  philosophic  severity,  the  moral  grandeur,  of 
such  thinkers  as  Emmanuel  Kant,  and  Gottlieb 
Fichte.  To  another  Scotch  gentleman,  who,  I  believe, 
has  honoured  me  by  his  presence  here  to-night,  we 
owe  most  valuable  translations  of  some  of  Fichte^s 
works ;    to   be    followed,    I   trusty    by   more.      And 


III.]  NEOPLATONISM.  73 

though^  as  a  humble  disciple  of  Bacon^  I  cannot  but 
think  that  the  method  both  of  Kant  and  Fichte 
possesses  somewhat  of  the  same  inherent  defect  as  the 
method  of  the  Neoplatonist  school,  yet  I  should  be 
most  unfair  did  I  not  express  my  deep  obligations  to 
them,  and  advise  all  those  to  study  them  carefully, 
who  wish  to  gain  a  clear  conception  either  of  the  old 
Alexandrian  schools,  or  of  those  intellectual  move- 
ments which  are  agitating  the  modern  mind,  and 
which  will,  I  doubt  not,  issue  in  a  clearer  light,  and  in 
a  nobler  life,  if  not  for  us,  yet  still  for  our  children's 
children  for  ever. 

The  name  of  Philo  the  Jew  is  now  all  but  for- 
gotten among  us.  He  was  laughed  out  of  sight  during 
the  last  century,  as  a  dreamer  and  an  allegorist,  who 
tried  eclectically  to  patch  together  Plato  and  Moses. 
The  present  age,  however,  is  rapidly  beginning  to 
suspect  that  all  who  thought  before  the  eighteenth 
century  were  not  altogether  either  fools  or  impostors  ; 
old  wisdom  is  obtaining  a  fairer  hearing  day  by  day, 
and  is  found  not  to  be  so  contradictory  to  new  wisdom 
as  was  supposed.  We  are  beginning,  too,  to  be  more 
inclined  to  justify  Providence,  by  believing  that  lies 
are  by  their  very  nature  impotent  and  doomed  to  die ; 
that  everything  which  has  had  any  great  or  permanent 
influence  on  the  human  mind,  must  have  in  it  some 
germ  of  eternal  truth ;  and  setting  ourselves  to 
separate  that  germ  of  truth  from  the  mistakes  which 
may  have  distorted  and  overlaid  it.  Let  us  believe,  or 
at  least  hope,  the  same  for  a  few  minutes,  of  Philo,  and 
try  to  find  out  what  was  the  secret  of  his  power,  what 
the  secret  of  his  weakness. 

First  :  I  cannot  think  that  he  had  to  treat  his  own 
sacred  books  unfairly,  to  make  them  agree  with  the  root- 


H  ALEXANDRIA  AND   HER   SCHOOLS.  [lect. 

idea  of  Socrates  and  Plato.  Socrates  and  Plato  acknow- 
ledged a  Divine  teaclier  of  the  human  spirit ;  that  was 
the  ground  of  their  philosophy.  So  did  the  literature  of 
the  Jews.  Socrates  and  Plato^  with  all  the  Greek 
sages  till  the  Sophistic  era,  held  that  the  object  of 
philosophy  was  the  search  after  that  which  truly 
exists :  that  he  who  found  that^  found  wisdom : 
Philo^s  books  taught  him  the  same  truth  :  but  they 
taught  him  also,  that  the  search  for  wisdom  was  not  ^ 
merely  the  search  for  that  which  is,  but  for  Him  who 
is ;  not  for  a  thing,  but  for  a  person.  I  do  not  mean 
that  Plato  and  the  elder  Greeks  had  not  that  object 
also  in  view ;  for  I  have  said  already  that  Theology 
was  with  them  the  ultimate  object  of  all  metaphysic 
science  :  but  I  do  think  that  they  saw  it  infinitely  less 
clearly  than  the  old  Jewish  sages.  Those  sages  were 
utterly  unable  to  conceive  of  an  absolute  truth, 
except  as  residing  in  an  absolutely  true  person;  of 
absolute  wisdom,  except  in  an  absolutely  wise  person ; 
of  an  absolute  order  and  law,  except  in  a  lawgiver ; 
of  an  absolute  good,  except  in  an  absolutely  good 
person :  any  more  than  either  they  or  we  can  conceive 
of  an  absolute  love,  except  in  an  absolutely  loving 
person.  I  say  boldly,  that  I  think  them  right,  on  all 
grounds  of  Baconian  induction.  For  all  these  qualities 
are  only  known  to  us  as  exhibited  in  persons ;  and  if 
we  believe  them  to  have  any  absolute  and  eternal 
existence  at  all,  to  be  objective,  and  independent  of 
us,  and  the  momentary  moods  and  sentiments  of  our 
own  mind,  they  must  exist  in  some  absolute  and 
eternal  person,  or  they  are  mere  notions,  abstractions, 
words,  which  have  no  counterparts. 

But  here  arose  a  puzzle  in  the  mind  of  Philo,  as  it 
in  reality  had,  we  may  see,  in  the  minds  of  Soci'ates 


ni.]  NEOPLATONISM.  75 

and  Plato.  How  could  lie  reconcile  tlie  idea  of  that 
absolute  and  eternal  one  Being,  that  Zeus,  Father  of 
Oods  and  men,  self-perfect,  self-contained,  without 
cliange  or  motion,  in  wliom,  as  a  Jew,  he  believed  even 
more  firmly  than  the  Platonists,  with  the  Daemon  of 
Socrates,  the  Divine  Teacher  whom  both  Plato  and 
Solomon  confessed  ?  Or  how,  again,  could  he  recon- 
cile the  idea  of  Him  with  the  creative  and  providential 
energy,  working  in  space  and  time,  working  on  matter, 
and  apparently  affected  and  limited,  if  not  baffled,  by 
the  imperfection  of  the  minds  which  he  taught,  by  the 
imperfection  of  the  matter  which  he  moulded  ?  This, 
as  all  students  of  philosophy  must  know,  was  one  of 
the  great  puzzles  of  old  Greek  philosophy,  as  long  as 
it  was  earnest  and  cared  to  have  any  puzzles  at  all :  it 
has  been,  since  the  days  of  Spinoza,  the  great  puzzle 
of  all  earnest  modern  philosophers.  Philo  offered  a 
solution  in  that  idea  of  a  Logos,  or  Word  of  God, 
Divinity__jTtic^^  speaking  and  acting  in  time  and 
space,  and  therefore  by  successive  acts ;  and  so  doing, 
in  time  and  space,  the  will  of  the  timeless  and  space- 
less Father,  the  Abysmal  and  Eternal  Being,  of  whom 
he  was  the  perfect  likeness.  In  calling  this  person 
the  Logos,  and  making  him  the  source  of  all  human 
reason,  and  knowledge  of  eternal  laws,  he  only  trans- 
lated from  Hebrew  into  Greek  the  name  which  he 
found  in  his  sacred  books,  ^^  The  Word  of  God.^^  As 
yet  we  have  found  no  unfair  allegorising  of  Moses,  or 
twisting  of  Plato.  How  then  has  he  incurred  this 
accusation  ? 

I  cannot  think,  again,  that  he  was  unfair  in  suppos- 
ing that  he  might  hold  at  the  same  time  the  Jewish 
belief  concerning  Creation,  and  the  Platonic  doctrine 
of    the   real  existence  of  Archetypal  ideas,  both   of 


76  .        ALEXANDRIA  AND   HER   SCHOOLS.  [lect. 

moral  and  of  physical  phenomena.  I  do  not  mean 
that  sucli  a  conception  was  present  consciously  to  tlie 
mind  of  the  old  Jews,  as  it  was  most  certainly  to  the 
mind  of  St.  Paul,  a  practised  Platonic  dialectician ;  but 
it  seems  to  me,  as  to  Philo,  to  be  a  fair,  perhaps  a 
necessary,  corollary  from  the  Genetic  Philosophy,  both 
of  Moses  and  of  Solomon. 

But  in  one  thing  he  was  unfair;  namely,  in  his 
allegorising.  But  unfair  to  whom  ?  To  Socrates  and/ 
Plato,  I  believe,  as  much  as  to  Moses  and  to  Samuel/ 
For  what  is  the  part  of  the  old  Jewish  books  which  he 
evaporates  away  into  mere  mystic  symbols  of  the 
private  experiences  of  the  devout  philosopher  ?  Its 
practical  everyday  histories,  which  deal  with  the 
common  human  facts  of  family  and  national  life,  of 
man's  outward  and  physical  labour  and  craft.  These 
to  him  have  no  meaning,  except  an  allegoric  one.  But 
has  he  thrown  them  away  for  the  sake  of  getting  a 
step  nearer  to  Socrates,  or  Plato,  or  Aristotle?  Surely 
not.  To  them,  as  to  the  old  Jewish  sages,  man  is  most 
important  when  regarded  not  merely  as  a  soul,  but  as 
a  man,  a  social  being  of  flesh  and  blood.  Aristotle 
declares  politics  to  be  the  architectonical  science,  the 
family  and  social  relations  to  be  the  eternal  master- 
facts  of  humanity.  Plato,  in  his  Republic,  sets  before 
himself  the  Constitution  of  a  State,  as  the  crowning 
problem  of  his  philosophy.  Every  work  of  his,  like 
every  saying  of  his  master  Socrates,  deals  with  the 
common,  outward,  vulgar  facts  of  human  life,  and 
asserts  that  there  is  a  divine  meaning  in  them,  and 
that  reverent  induction  from  them  is  the  way  to  obtain 
the  deepest  truths.  Socrates  and  Plato  were  as  little 
inclined  to  separate  the  man  and  the  philosopher  as 
Moses,    Solomon,  or   Isaiah   were.     When  Philo,  by 


III.]  NEOPLATONISM,  77 

allegorising  away  the  simple  liuman  parts  of  his  books, 
is  untrue  to  Moseses  teachings  lie  becomes  untrue  to 
Plato^s.  He  becomes  untrue,  I  believe^,  to  a  higher 
teaching  than  Plato's.  He  loses  sight  of  an  eternal 
truth,  which  even  old  Homer  might  have  taught  him, 
when  he  treats  Moses  as  one  section  of  his  disciples  in 
after  years  treated  Homer. 

For  what  is  the  secret  of  the  eternal  freshness,  the 
eternal  beauty,  ay,  I  may  say  boldly,  in  spite  of  all 
their  absurdities  and  immoralities,  the  eternal  righteous- 
ness of  those  old  Greek  myths  ?  What  is  it  which 
made  Socrates  and  Plato  cling  lovingly  and  reverently 
to  them,  they  scarce  knew  why,  while  they  deplored 
the  immoralities  to  which  they  had  given  rise  ?  What 
is  it  which  made  those  myths,  alone  of  all  old  mytho- 
logies, the  parents  of  truly  beautiful  sculpture,  paint- 
ing, poetry  ?  What  is  it  which  makes  us  love  them 
still ;  find,  even  at  times  against  our  consciences,  new 
meaning,  new  beauty  in  them ;  and  brings  home  the 
story  of  Perseus  or  of  Hercules,  alike  to  the  practised 
reason  of  Niebuhr,  and  the  untutored  instincts  of 
Niebuhr^s  little  child,  for  whom  he  threw  them  into 
simplest  forms  ?  Why  is  it  that  in  spite  of  our  dis- 
agreeing with  their  creed  and  their  morality,  we  still 
persist — and  long  may  we  persist,  or  rather  be  com- 
pelled— as  it  were  by  blind  instinct,  to  train  our  boys 
upon  those  old  Greek  dreams ;  and  confess,  whenever 
we  try  to  find  a  substitute  for  them  in  our  educational 
schemes,  that  we  have  as  yet  none  ?  Because  those 
old  Greek  stories  do  represent  the  Deities  as  the  arche- 
types, the  kinsmen,  the  teachers,  the  friends,  the 
inspirers  of  men.  Because  while  the  schoolboy  reads 
how  the  Gods  were  like  to  men,  only  better,  wiser, 
greater ;  how  the  Heroes  are  the  children  of  the  Gods, 


78  ALEXANDRIA  AND   HER   SCHOOLS.  [lect. 

and  the  slayers  of  the  monsters  which,  devour  the 
earth ;  how  Athene  taught  men  weaving,  and  Phoobus 
music_,  and  Vulcan  the  cunning  of  the  stithy ;  how 
the  Gods  took  pity  on  the  noble-hearted  son  of  Danae^ 
and  lent  him  celestial  arms  and  guided  him  over  desert 
and  ocean  to  fulfil  his  vow — that  boy  is  learning  deep 
lessons  of  metaphysic,  more  in  accordance  with  the 
reine  vernimft,  the  pure  reason  whereby  man  perceives 
that  which  is  moral,  and  spiritual,  and  eternal,  than  he 
would  from  all  disquisitions  about  being  and  be- 
coming, about  actualities  and  potentialities,  which  ever 
tormented  the  weary  brain  of  man. 

Let  us  not  despise  the  gem  because  it  has  been 
broken  to  fragments,  obscured  by  silt  and  mud.  Still 
less  let  us  fancy  that  one  least  fragment  of  it  is  not 
more  precious  than  the  most  brilliant  paste  jewel  of 
our  own  compounding,  though  it  be  polished  and 
faceted  never  so  completely.  For  what  are  all  these 
myths  but  fragments  of  that  great  metaphysic  idea, 
which,  I  boldly  say,  I  believe  to  be  at  once  the  justifier 
and  the  harmoniser  of  all  philosophic  truth  which  man 
has  ever  discovered,  or  will  discover ;  which  Philo  saw 
partially,  and  yet  clearly ;  which  the  Hebrew  sages 
perceived  far  more  deeply,  because  more  humanly  and 
practically;  which  Saint  Paul  the  Platonist,  and  yet 
the  Apostle,  raised  to  its  highest  power,  when  he 
declared  that  the  immutable  and  self- existent  Being, 
for  whom  the  Greek  sages  sought,  and  did  not  alto- 
gether seek  in  vain,  has  gathered  together  all  things 
both  in  heaven  and  in  earth  in  one  inspiring  and 
creating  Logos,  who  is  both  God  and  Man  ? 

Be  this  as  it  may,  we  find  that  from  the  time  of 
Philo,  the  deepest  thought  of  the  heathen  world  began 
to  flow  in  a  theologic  channel.     All  the  great  heathen 


III.]  NEOPLATONISM.  ^9 

thinkers  hencefortli  are  theologians.  In  the  times  of 
Nero,  for  instance,  Epictetus  the  slave,  the  regenerator 
of  Stoicism,  is  no  mere  speculator  concerning  entities 
and  quiddities,  correct  or  incorrect.  He  is  a  slave 
searching  for  the  secret  of  freedom,  and  finding  that 
it  consists  in  escaping  not  from  a  master,  but  from 
self :  not  to  wealth  and  power,  but  to  Jove.  He  dis- 
covers that  Jove  is,  in  some  most  mysterious,  but  most 
real  sense,  the  Father  of  men ;  he  learns  to  look  up  to 
that  Father  as  his  guide  and  friend. 

Numenius,  again,  in  the  second  century,  was  a  man 
who  had  evid^tly  studied  Philo.  He  perceived  so 
deeply,  I  may  say  so  exaggeratedly,  the  analogy 
between  the  Jewish  and  the  Platonic  assertions  of  an 
Absolute  and  Eternal  Being,  side  by  side  with  the 
assertion  of  a  Divine  Teacher  of  man,  that  he  is  said 
to  have  uttered  the  startling  saying  :  ^^  What  is  Plato 
but  Moses  talking  Attic  ?  ^^  Doubtless  Plato  is  not 
that :  but  the  expression  is  remarkable,  as  showing  the 
tendency  of  the  age.  He  too  looks  up  to  God  with 
prayers  for  the  guidance  of  his  reason.  He  too  enters 
into  speculation  concerning  God  in  His  absoluteness, 
and  in  His  connection  with  the  universe.  "  The  Pri- 
mary God,^'  he  says,  ^^  must  be  free  from  works  and 
a  King;  but  the  Demiurgus  must  exercise  govern- 
ment, going  through  the  heavens.  Through  Him 
comes  this  our  condition ;  through  Him  Eeason  being 
sent  down  in  efflux,  holds  communion  with  all  who  are 
prepared  for  it :  God  then  looking  down,  and  turning 
Himself  to  each  of  us,  it  comes  to  pass  that  our  bodies 
live  and  are  nourished,  receiving  strength  from  the 
outer  rays  which  come  from  Him.  But  when  God 
turns  us  to  the  contemplation  of  Himself,  it  comes  to 
pass  that  these  things  are  worn  out  and  consumed^ 


80  ALEXANDRIA  AND   HER    SCHOOLS.  [lect. 

but  tliat  the  reason  lives^  being  partaker  of  a  blessed 
Hie.'' 

This  passage  is  exceedingly  interesting,  as  con- 
taining both  the  marrow  of  old  Hebrew  metaphysic, 
and  also  certain  notional  elements,  of  which  we  find 
no  trace  in  the  Scripture,  and  which  may  lead — as  we 
shall  find  they  afterwards  did  lead — to  confusing  the 
moral  with  the  notional,  and  finally  the  notional  with 
the  material ;  in  plain  words,  to  Pantheism. 

You  find  this  tendency,  in  short,  in  all  the  philo- 
sophers who  flourished  between  the  age  of  Augustus 
and  the  rise  of  Alexandrian  Neoplatonism.  Gibbon, 
while  he  gives  an  approving  pat  on  the  back  to  his  pet 
^^Philosophic  Emperor,^^  Marcus  Aurelius,  blinks  the 
fact  that  Marcuses  philosophy,  like  that  of  Plutarch, 
contains  as  an  integral  element,  a  belief  which  to  him 
would  have  been,  I  fear,  simply  ludicrous,  from  its 
strange  analogy  with  the  belief  of  John,  the  Christian 
Apostle.  What  is  Marcus  Aurelius^s  cardinal  doctrine  ? 
That  there  is  a  God  within  him,  a  Word,  a  Logos, 
which  "  has  hold  of  him,^^  and  who  is  his  teacher  and 
guardian ;  that  over  and  above  his  body  and  his  soul, 
he  has  a  Keason  which  is  capable  of  ^^  hearing  that 
Divine  Word,  and  obeying  the  monitions  of  that  God/^ 
What  is  PlutarcVs  cardinal  doctrine  ?  That  the  same 
Word,  the  Daemon  who  spoke  to  the  heart  of  Socrates, 
is  speaking  to  him  and  to  every  philosopher;  ^^ coming 
into  contact,^^  he  says,  "  with  him  in  some  wonderful 
manner;  addressing  the  reason  of  those  who,  like 
Socrates,  keep  their  reason  pure,  not  under  the  dominion 
of  passion,  nor  mixing  itself  greatly  with  the  body,  and 
therefore  quick  and  sensitive  in  responding  to  that 
which  encountered  it. 

You  see  from  these  two  extracts  what  questions 


III.]  NEOPLATONISM.  81 

were  arising  in  the  minds  of  men^  and  how  they  touched 
on  ethical  and  theological  questions.  I  say  arising  in 
their  minds :  I  believe  that  I  ought  to  say  rather^ 
stirred  up  in  their  minds  by  One  greater  than  they. 
At  all  events^  there  they  appeared_,  utterly  independent 
of  any  Christian  teaching.  The  belief  in  this  Logos  or 
Daemon  speaking  to  the  Keason  of  man,  was  one  which 
neither  Plutarch  nor  Marcus,  neither  Numenius  nor 
Ammonius,  as  far  as  we  can  see,  learnt  from  the 
Christians;  it  was  the  common  ground  which  they  held 
with  them ;  the  common  battlefield  which  they  disputed 
with  them. 

Neither  have  we  any  reason  to  suppose  that  they\. 
learnt  it  from  the  Hindoos.  That  much  Hindoo  I 
thought  mixed  with  Neoplatonist  speculation  we  cannot  i 
doubt ;  but  there  is  not  a  jot  more  evidence  to  prove  | 
that  Alexandrians  borrowed  this  conception  from  the 
Mahabharavata,  than  that  George  Fox  the  Quaker,  or 
the  author  of  the  ^^  Deutsche  Theologie,^^  did  so.  They 
may  have  gone  to  Hindoo  philosophy,  or  rather,  to 
second  and  third  hand  traditions  thereof,  for  corrobo- 
rations of  the  belief ;  but  be  sure,  it  must  have  existed 
in  their  own  hearts  first,  or  they  would  never  have 
gone  thither.  Believe  it ;  be  sure  of  it.  No  earnest 
thinker  is  a  plagiarist  pure  and  simple.  He  will  never 
borrow  from  others  that  which  he  has  not  already, 
more  or  less,  thought  out  for  himself.  When  once 
a  great  idea,  instinctive,  inductive  (for  the  two  ex- 
pressions are  nearer  akin  than  most  fancy),  has  dawned 
on  his  soul,  he  will  welcome  lovingly,  awfully,  any 
corroboration  from  foreign  schools,  and  cry  with  joy  : 
^^  Behold,  this  is  not  altogether  a  dream  :  for  others 
have  found  it  also.  Surely  it  must  be  real,  universal, 
eternal.^^     No;  be  sure  there  is  far  more  originality 

VOL.  I. — H.  E.  G 


82  ALEXANDEIA  AND   HEE   SCHOOLS.  [lect. 

(in  the  common  sense  of  tlie  word),  and  far  less  (in  the 
true  sense  of  the  word),  than  we  fancy;  and  that  it 
is  a  paltry  and  shallow  doctrine  which  represents  each 
succeeding  school  as  merely  the  puppets  and  dupes  of 
the  preceding.  More  originality,  because  each  earnest 
man  seems  to  think  out  for  himself  the  deepest  grounds 
of  his  creed.  Less  originality,  because,  as  I  believe,  one 
common  Logos,  Word,  Reason,  reveals  and  unveils  the 
same  eternal  truth  to  all  who  seek  and  hunger  for  it. 

Therefore  we  can,  as  the  Christian  philosophers  of 
Alexandria  did,  rejoice  over  every  truth  which  their 
/  heathen  adversaries  beheld,  and  attribute  them,  as 
jL— --Gtoaefii^does,  to  the  highest  source,  to  the  inspiration 
of  the  one  and  universal  Logos.  With  Clement,  philo- 
sophy is  only  hurtful  when  it  is  untrue  to  itself,  and 
philosophy  falsely  so  called;  true  philosophy  is  an  image 
of  the  truth,  a  divine  gift  bestowed  on  the  Greeks. 
The  Bible,  in  his  eyes,  asserts  that  all  forms  of  art  and 
wisdom  are  from  God.  The  wise  in  mind  have  no 
doubt  some  peculiar  endowment  of  nature,  but  when 
they  have  offered  themselves  for  their  work,  they 
receive  a  spirit  of  perception  from  the  Highest  Wisdom, 
giving  them  a  new  fitness  for  it.  All  severe  study,  all 
cultivation  of  sympathy,  are  exercises  of  this  spiritual 
endowment.  The  whole  intellectual  discipline  of  the 
Greeks,  with  their  philosophy,  came  down  from  God 
to  men.  Philosophy,  he  concludes  in  one  place,  carries 
on  "an  inquiry  concerning  Truth  and  the  nature  of 
Being;  and  this  Truth  is  that  concerning  which  the 
Lord  Himself  said :  ^  I  am  the  Truth.^  And  when 
the  initiated  find,  or  rather  receive,  the  true  philosophy, 
they  have  it  from  the  Truth  itself ;  that  is  from  Him 
who  is  true.^^ 

While,  then,  these  two  schools  had  so  many  grounds 


ill.]  NEOPLATONISM.  83 

in  common^  wliere  was  their  point  of  divergence  ?  We 
shall  find  it,  I  believe,  fairly  expressed  in  the  dying 
words  of  Plotinus,  the  great  father  of  Neoplatonism. 
^^  I  am  striving  to  bring  the  God  which  is  in  us  into 
harmony  with  the  God  which  is  in  the  universe/^ 
Whether  or  not  Plotinus  actually  so  spoke,  that  was 
what  his  disciples  not  only  said  that  he  spoke,  but 
what  they  would  have  wished  him  to  speak.  That 
one  sentence  expresses  the  whole  object  of  their 
philosophy. 

But  to  that  Pantgenus,  Origen,  Clement^  and  Augus- 
tine would  have  answered :  ^'  And  we,  on  the  other  ' 
hand,  assert  that  the  God  which  is  in  the  universe,  is 
the  same  as  the  God  which  is  in  you,  and  is  striving 
to  bring  you  into  harmony  with  Himself.''^  There  is 
the  experimentum  crucis.  There  is  the  vast  gulf 
between  the  Christian  and  the  Heathen  schools,  which 
when  any  man  had  overleaped,  the  whole  problem  of 
the  universe  was  from  that  moment  inverted.  With 
Plotinus  and  his  school  man  is  seeking  for  God :  with 
Clement  and  his,  God  is  seeking  for  man.  With  the 
former,  God  is  passive,  and  man  active:  with  the 
latter,  God  is  active,  man  is  passive — ^passive,  that  is, 
in  so  far  as  his  business  is  to  listen  when  he  is  spoken 
to,  to  look  at  the  light  which  is  unveiled  to  him,  to 
submit  himself  to  the  inward  laws  which  he  feels 
reproving  and  checking  him  at  every  turn,  as  Socrates 
was  reproved  and  checked  by  his  inward  DsBmon. 

Whether  of  these  two  theorems  gives  the  higher 
conception  either  of  the  Divine  Being,  or  of  man,  I 
leave  it  for  you  to  judge.  To  those  old  Alexandrian 
Christians,  a  being  who  was  not  seeking  after  every 
single  creature,  and  trying  to  raise  him,  could  not  be  a 
Being  of  absolute  Righteousness,  Power,  Love ;   could 

G  2 


84  ALEXANDEIA   AND   HER   SCHOOLS.  [lect. 

not  be  a  Being  wortliy  of  respect  or  admiration^  even 
of  philosopliic  speculation.  Human  righteousness  and 
love  flows  forth  disinterestedly  to  all  around  it^  how- 
ever unconscious^  however  unworthy  they  may  be  ; 
human  power  associated  with  goodness^  seeks  for 
objects  which  it  may  raise  and  benefit  by  that  power. 
We  must  confess  this^  with  the  Christian  schools^  or^ 
with  the  Heathen  schools,  we  must  allow  another 
theory,  which  brought  them  into  awful  depths;  which 
may  bring  any  generation  which  holds  it  into  the 
same  depths. 

If  Clement  had  asked  the  Neoplatonists  :  ^^  You 
believe,  Plotinus^  in  an  absolutely  Good  Being.  Do 
you  believe  that  it  desires  to  shed  forth  its  goodness 
on  all  ?  ^^  ^^  Of  course/^  they  would  have  answered, 
^^  on  those  who  seek  for  it,  on  the  philosopher.'^^ 

"  But  not,  it  seems,  Plotinus,  on  the  herd,  the 
brutal,  ignorant  mass,  wallowing  in  those  foul  crimes 
above  which  you  have  risen  ?  ^^  And  at  that  question 
there  would  have  been  not  a  little  hesitation.  These 
brutes  in  human  form,  these  souls  wallowing  in  earthly 
mire,  could  hardly,  in  the  Neoplatonists^  eyes,  be 
objects  of  the  Divine  desire. 

^^  Then  this  Absolute  Good,  you  say,  Plotinus,  has 
no  relation  with  them,  no  care  to  raise  them.  In  fact, 
it  cannot  raise  them,  because  they  have  nothing  in 
common  with  it.  Is  that  your  notion  ?  ^'  And  the 
Neoplatonists  would  have,  on  the  whole,  allowed  that 
argument.  And  if  Clement  had  answered,  that  such 
was  not  his  notion  of  Goodness,  or  of  a  Good  Being, 
and  that  therefore  the  goodness  of  their  Absolute 
Good,  careless  of  the  degradation  and  misery  around 
it,  must  be  something  very  different  from  his  notions 
of  human   goodness;   the  Neoplatonists  would  have 


in.]  NEOPLATONISM.  85 

answered — indeed  they  did  answer — ^^  After  all,  wliy 
not  ?  Why  should  the  Absolute  Goodness  be  like  our 
human  goodness  ?  '^  This  is  Plotinus^s  own  belief.  It 
is  a  question  with  him,  it  was  still  more  a  question  with 
those  who  came  after  him,  whether  virtues  could  be 
predicated  of  the  Divine  nature;  courage,  for  instance, 
p^  of  one  who  had  nothing  to  fear ;  self-restraint,  of  one 
'  who  had  nothing  to  desire.  And  thus,  by  setting  up 
a  different  standard  of  morality  for  the  divine  and  for 
the  human,  Plotinus  gradually  arrives  at  the  conclusion, 
tat  virtue  is  noj Jh^.,  end^.^but,„thja  means ;  not  the 
^me  nature  itself,  as  the  Christian  schools  held,  but 
only  the  purgative  process  by  which  man  was  to 
ascend  into  heaven,  and  which  was  necessary  to  arrive 
at  that  nature — that  nature  itself  being — what  ? 

And  how  to  answer  that  last  question  was  the 
abysmal  problem  of  the  whole  of  Neoplatonic  philo- 
sophy, in  searching  for  which  it  wearied  itself  out, 
generation  after  generation,  till  tired  equally  of  seek- 
ing and  of  speaking,  it  fairly  lay  down  and  died.  In 
proportion  as  it  refused  to  acknowledge  a  common 
divine  nature  with  the  degraded  mass,  it  deserted  its 
first  healthy  instinct,  which  told  it  that  the  spiritual 
world  is  identical  with  the  moral  world,  with  right, 
love,  justice ;  it  tried  to  find  new  definitions  for  the 
spiritual;  it  conceived  it  to  be  identical  with  the 
intellectual.  That  did  not  satisfy  its  heart.  It  had  to 
repeople  the  spiritual  world,  which  it  had  emptied  of 
its  proper  denizens,  with  ghosts ;  to  reinvent  the  old 
dsemonologies  and  polytheisms — from  thence  to  descend 
into  lower  depths,  of  which  we  will  speak  hereafter. 

But  in  the  meanwhile  we  must  look  at.  another 
quarrel  which  arose  between  the  two  twin  schools  of 
Alexandria.     The  Neoplatonists  said  that  there  is  a 


86  ALEXANDEIA  AND  HER  SCHOOLS.  [lect. 

divine  element  in  man.  The  Christian  philosophers 
assented  fervently,  and  raised  the  old  disagreeable 
question  :  ^^Is  it  in  every  man  ?  In  the  publicans  and  . 
harlots  as  well  as  in  the  philosophers  ?  We  say  that  1 
it  is/^  And  there  again  the  Neoplatonist  finds  it  over  ' 
hard  to  assent  to  a  doctrine,  equally  contrary  to  out- 
ward appearance,  and  galling  to  Pharisaic  pride  ;  and 
enters  into  a  hundred  honest  self-puzzles  and  self- 
contradictions,  which  seem  to  justify  him  at  last 
in  saying.  No.  It  is  in  the  philosopher,  who  is  ready 
by  nature,  as  Plotinus  has  it,  and  as  it  were  furnished 
with  wings,  and  not  needing  to  sever  himself  from 
matter  like  the  rest,  but  disposed  already  to  ascend  to 
that  which  is  above.  And  in  a  degree  too,  it  is  in  the 
^over,^^  who,  according  to  Plotinus,  has  a  certain 
innate  recollection  of  beauty,  and  hovers  round  it,  and 
desires  it,  wherever  he  sees  it.  Him  you  may  raise  to 
the  apprehension  of  the  one  incorporeal  Beauty,  by 
teaching  him  to  separate  beauty  from  the  various 
objects  in  which  it  appears  scattered  and  divided. 
And  it  is  even  in  the  third  class,  the  lowest  of  whom 
there  is  hope,  namely,  the  musical  man,  capable  of  ^ 
being  passively  affected  by  beauty,  without  having 
any  active  appetite  for  it ;  the  sentimentalist,  in  short, 
as  we  should  call  him  nowadays. 

But  for  the  herd,  Plotinus  cannot  say  that  there  is  i  i 
anything  divine  in  them.  And  thus  it  gradually  comes  I 
out  in  all  Neoplatonist  writings  which  I  have  yet  ex- 
amined, that  the  Divine  only  exists  in  a  man,  in  pro- 
portion as  he  is  conscious  of  its  existence  in  him. 
From  which  spring  two  conceptions  of  the  Divine  in 
man.  First,  is  it  a  part  of  him,  if  it  is  dependent  for 
its  existence  on  his  consciousness  of  it  ?  Or  is  it,  as 
Philo,  Plutarch,  Marcus  Aurelius  would  have  held,  as 


III.]  NEOPLATONISM.  87 

I  the  Christians  held^  something  independent  of  him, 
(  without  him,,  a  Logos  or  Word  speaking  to  his  reason 
and  conscience  ?  With  this  question  Plotinus  grapples, 
earnestly,  shrewdly,  fairly.  If  you  wish  to  see  how  he 
does  it,  you  should  read  the  fourth  and  fifth  books  of 
the  sixth  Ennead,  especially  if  you  be  lucky  enough  to 
light  on  a  copy  of  that  rare  book,  Taylor's  faithful 
though  crabbed  translation. 

Not  that  the  result  of  his  search  is  altogether 
satisfactory.  He  enters  into  subtle  and  severe  dis- 
quisitions concerning  soul.  Whether  it  is  one  or 
many.  How  it  can  be  both  one  and  many.  He  has 
the  strongest  perception  that,  to  use  the  noble  saying 
of  the  Germans,  "  Time  and  Space  are  no  gods.''''  He 
sees  clearly  that  the  soul,  and  the  whole  unseen  world 
of  truly  existing  being,  is  independent  of  time  and 
space  :  and  yet,  after  he  has  wrestled  with  the  two 
Titans,  through  page  after  page,  and  apparently  con- 
quered them,  they  slip  in  again  unawares  into  the 
battle-field,  the  moment  his  back  is  turned.  He 
j denies  that  the  one  Reason  has  parts — it  must  exist  as 
la  whole  wheresoever  it  exists  :  and  yet  he  cannot  ex- 
I  press  the  relation  of  the  individual  soul  to  it,  but  by 
f  saying  that  we  are  parts  of  it ;  or  that  each  thing, 
down  to  the  lowest,  receives  as  much  soul  as  it  is  capable 
of  possessing.  Ritter  has  worked  out  at  length, 
though  in  a  somewhat  dry  and  lifeless  way,  the  hundred 
contradictions  of  this  kind  which  you  meet  in  Plotinus  ; 
contradictions  which  I  suspect  to  be  inseparable  from 
any  philosophy  starting  from  his  grounds.  Is  he  not 
looking  for  the  spiritual  in  a  region  where  it  does  not 
exist ;  in  the  region  of  logical  conceptions  and  abstrac- 
tions, which  are  not  realities,  but  only,  after  all,  symbols 
of  our  own,  whereby  we  express  to  ourselves  the  pro- 


88  ALEXANDRIA  AND   HER   SCHOOLS.  [lect. 

cesses  of  our  own  brain  ?  May  not  his  Oliristian  con- 
temporaries have  been  nearer  scientific  truth,  as  well 
as  nearer  the  common  sense  and  practical  belief  of 
mankind,  in  holding  that  that  which  is  spiritual  is  per- 
sonal, and  can  only  be  seen  or  conceived  of  as  residing 
in  persons  ;  and  that  that  which  is  personal  is  moral,  / 
and  has  to  do,  not  with  abstractions  of  the  intellect, 
but  with  right  and  wrong,  love  and  hate,  and  all  which, 
in  the  common  instincts  of  men,  involves  a  free  will,  a 
free  judgment,  a  free  responsibility  and  desert  ?  And  , 
that,  therefore,  if  there  were  a  Spirit,  a  Daemonic) 
Element,  an  universal  Eeason,  a  Logos,  a  Divine/ 
Element,  closely  connected  with  man,  that  one  Reason, 
that  one  Divine  Element,  must  be  a  person  also  ?  At 
least,  so  strong  was  the  instinct  of  even  the  Heathen 
schools  in  this  direction,  that  the  followers  of  Plotinus 
had  to  fill  up  the  void  which  yawned  between  man  and 
the  invisible  things  after  which  he  yearned,  by  reviving 
the  whole  old  Pagan  Polytheism,  and  adding  to  it  a 
Dasmonology  borrowed  partly  from  the  Chaldees,  and 
partly  from  the  Jewish  rabbis,  which  formed  a  des- 
cending chain  of  persons,  downward  from  the  highest 
Deities  to  heroes,  and  to  the  guardian  angel  of  each 
man ;  the  meed  of  the  philosopher  being,  that  by  self- 
culture  and  self-restraint  he  could  rise  above  the 
tutelage  of  some  lower  and  more  earthly  daemon,  and 
become  the  pupil  of  a  God,  and  finally  a  God  himself. 
These  contradictions  need  not  lower  the  great 
Father  of  Neoplatonism  in  our  eyes,  as  a  moral  being. 
All  accounts  of  him  seem  to  prove  him  to  have  been 
what  Apollo,  in  a  lengthy  oracle,  declared  him  to  have 
been,  ^'  good  and  gentle,  and  benignant  exceedingly, 
and  pleasant  in  all  his  conversation.''^  He  gave  good 
advice  about  earthly  matters,  was  a  faithful  steward 


III.]  NEOPLATONISM.  89 

of  moneys  deposited  withliim^a  guardian  of  widows  and 
orphans,  a  righteous  and  loving  man.  In  his  practical 
life,  the  ascetic  and  gnostic  element  comes  out  strongly- 
enough .  The  body,  with  him,  was  not  evil,  neither 
was  it  good ;  it  was  simply  nothing — why  care  about 
it  ?  He  would  have  no  portrait  taken  of  his  person  : 
^'  It  was  humiliating  enough  to  be  obliged  to  carry  a 
shadow  about  with  him,  without  having  a  shadow  made 
of  that  shadow.''^  He  refused  animal  food,  abstained 
from  baths,  declined  medicine  in  his  last  illness,  and 
so  died  about  200  a.d. 

It  is  in  his  followers,  as  one  generally  sees  in  such 
cases,  that  the  weakness  of  his  conceptions  comes  out. 
Plotinus  was  an  earnest  thinker,  slavishly  enough 
reverencing  the  opinion  of  Plato,  whom  he  quotes  as 
an  infallible  oracle,  with  a  ^^  He  says,^^  as  if  there  were 
but  one  he  in  the  universe :  but  he  tried  honestly  to 
develop  Plato,  or  what  he  conceived  to  be  Plato,  on  the 
method  which  Plato  had  laid  down.  His  dialectic  is 
far  superior,  both  in  quantity  and  in  quality,  to  that  of 
those  who  come  after  him.  He  is  a  seeker.  His 
followers  are  not.  The  great  work  whioTmarks  the 
second  stage  of  his  school  is  not  an  inquiry,  but  a 
justification,  not  only  of  the  Egyptian,  but  of  all 
possible  theurgies  and  superstitions  ;  perhaps  the  best 
attempt  of  the  kind  which  the  world  has  ever  seen ; 
that  which  marks  the  third  is  a  mere  cloud-castle,  an 
inverted  pyramid,  not  of  speculation,  but  of  dogmatic 
assertion,  patched  together  from  all  accessible  rags 
and  bones  of  the  dead  world.  Some  here  will,  perhaps, 
guess  from  my  rough  descriptions,  that  I  speak  of 
lamblichus  and  Proclus. 

Whether  or  not  lamblichus  wrote  the  famous  work 
usually  attributed  to  him,  which  describes  itself  as  the 


90  ALEXANDEIA  AND   HER  SCHOOLS.  [lect. 

letter  of  Abamnon  the  Teacher  to  Porphyry^  he  became 
the  head  of  that  school  of  Neoplatonists  who  fell  back 
on  theurgy  and  magic^  and  utterly  swallowed  up  the 
more  rational^  though  more  hopeless^  school  of  Por- 
phyry. Not  that  Porphyry^  too^  with  all  his  dislike  of 
magic  and  the  vulgar  superstitions — a  dislike  intimately 
connected  with  his  loudly  expressed  dishke  of  the 
common  herd^  and  therefore  of  Christianity,  as  a 
religion  for  the  common  herd — did  not  believe  a  fact 
or  two,  which  looks  to  us,  nowadays,  somewhat  un- 
philosophical.  From  him  we  learn  that  one  Ammonius, 
trying  to  ciHish  Plotinus  by  magic  arts,  had  his 
weapons  so  completely  turned  against  himself,  that  all 
his  limbs  were  contracted.  From  him  we  learn  that 
Plotinus,  having  summoned  in  the  temple  of  Isis  his 
familiar  spirit,  a  god,  and  not  a  mere  daemon,  appeared. 
He  writes  sensibly  enough  however  to  one  Anebos,  an 
Egyptian  priest,  stating  his  doubts  as  to  the  popular 
notions  of  the  Gods,  as  beings  subject  to  human 
passions  and  vices,  and  of  theurgy  and  magic,  as 
material  means  of  compelling  them  to  appear,  or 
alluring  them  to  favour  man.  The  answer  of  Abamnon, 
Anebos,  lamblichus,  or  whoever  the  real  author  may 
have  been,  is  worthy  of  perusal  by  every  metaphysical 
student,  as  a  curious  phase  of  thought,  not  confined  to 
that  time,  but  rife,  under  some  shape  or  other,  in  every 
age  of  the  world^s  history,  and  in  this  as  much  as  in 
any.  There  are  many  passages  full  of  eloquence,  many 
more  full  of  true  and  noble  thought :  but  on  the  whole, 
it  is  the  sewing  of  new  cloth  into  an  old  garment; 
the  attempt  to  suit  the  old  superstition  to  the  new 
one,  by  eclectically  picking  and  choosing,  and  special 
pleading,  on  both  sides;   but  the  rent  is  only  made 


III.]  NEOPLATONISM.  91 

worse.  There  is  no  base  superstition  wliicli  Abamnon 
does  not  unconsciously  justify.  And  yet  lie  is  rapidly 
losing  sight  of  tlie  real  eternal  human  germs  of  truth 
round  which  those  superstitions  clustered^  and  is  really 
further  from  truth  and  reason  than  old  Homer  or 
Hesiod,  because  further  from  the  simple,  universal, 
everyday  facts,  and  relations,  and  duties  of  man,  which 
are,  after  all,  among  the  most  mysterious,  and  also 
among  the  most  sacred  objects  which  man  can 
contemplate. 

It  was  not  wonderful,  however,  that  Neoplatonism 
took  the  course  it  did.     Spirit,  they  felt  rightly,  was  / 
meant  to  rule  matter ;  it  was  to  be  freed  from  matter  \ 
only  for  that  very  purpose.     No  one  could  well  deny  y 
th^t.    The  philosopher,  as  he  rose  and  became,  accord- / 
ing  to  Plotinus,  a  god,  or  at  least  approached  toward  the/ 
gods,  must  partake  of  some  mysterious  and  transcenA 
dental  power.    No  one  could  well  deny  that  conclusion,  ^ 
granting  the  premiss.      But  of  what  power?     What 
had  he  to  show  as  the  result  of  his  intimate  communion 
with  an  unseen  Being  ?     The  Christian  Schools,  who 
held  that  the  spiritual  is  the  moral,  answered  accord- 
ingly.    He  must  show  righteousness,  and  love,  and 
peace  in  a  Holy  Spirit.     That  is  the  likeness  of  God. 
In  proportion  as  a  man  has  them,  he  is  partaker  of  a 
Divine  nature.     He  can  rise  no  higher,  and  he  needs 
no  more.    Platonists  had  said — No,  that  is  only  virtue; 
and  virtue  is  the  means,  not  the  end.     We  want  proof 
of  having  something  above  that;  something  more  than 
any  man  of  the  herd,  any  Christian  slave,  can  perform ; 
something  above  nature ;  portents  and  wonders.     So 
they  set  to  work  to  perform  wonders ;  and  succeeded, 
I  suppose,  more  or  less.     For  now  one  enters  into  a 


52  ALEXANDEIA  AND   HER   SCHOOLS.  [lect. 

whole  fairyland  of  those  very  phenomena  which  are 
puzzling  us  so  nowadays — ecstasy^  clairvoyance^  insen- 
sibility to  pain,  cures  produced  by  the  effect  of  what 
^'We  now  call  mesmerism.  They  are  all  there,  these 
modern  puzzles,  in  those  old  books  of  the  long  bygone 
seekers  for  wisdom.  It  makes  us  love  them^  while  it 
saddens  us  to  see  that  their  difficulties  were  the  same 
as  ours,  and  that  there  is  nothing  new  under  the  sun. 
Of  course,  a  great  deal  of  it  all  was  ^'  imagination.^^ 
But  the  question  then,  as  now  is,  what  is  this  wonder- 
working imagination  ? — unless  the  word  be  used  as  a 
mere  euphemism  for  lying,  which  really,  in  many  cases, 
is  hardly  fair.  We  cannot  wonder  at  the  old  Neo- 
platonists  for  attributing  these  strange  phenomena  to 
spiritual  influence,  when  we  see  some  who  ought  to 
know  better  doing  the  same  thing  now ;  and  others, 
who  more  wisely  believe  them  to  be  strictly  physical 
and  nervous,  so  utterly  unable  to  give  reasons  for  them, 
that  they  feel  it  expedient  to  ignore  them  for  awhile, 
till  they  know  more  about  those  physical  phenomena 
which  can  be  put  under  some  sort  of  classification,  and 
attributed  to  some  sort  of  inductive  law. 

But  again.  These  ecstasies,  cures,  and  so  forth, 
brought  them  rapidly  back  to  the  old  priestcrafts. 
The  Egyptian  priests,  the  Babylonian  and  Jewish 
sorcerers,  had  practised  all  this  as  a  trade  for  ages,  and 
reduced  it  to  an  art.  It  was  by  sleeping  in  the  temples 
of  the  deities,  after  due  mesmeric  manipulations,  that 
cures  were  even  then  effected.  Surely  the  old  priests 
were  the  people  to  whom  to  go  for  information.  The 
old  philosophers  of  Greece  were  venerable.  How  much 
more  those  of  the  East,  in  comparison  with  whom  the 
Greeks  were  children  ?  Besides,  if  these  daemons  and 
deities  were  so  near  them^  might  it  not  be  possible  to 


III.]  NEOPLATONISM.  9a 

behold  them.  ?  They  seemed  to  liave  given  up  caring 
much,  for  the  world  and  its  course — 

Effugerant  adytis  templisque  relictis 
Di  quibus  imperium  steterat. 

The  old  priests  used  to  make  them  appear — perhaps 
they  might  do  it  again.  And  if  spirit  could  act  directly 
and  preternaturally  on  matter^  in  spite  of  the  laws  of 
matter^  perhaps  matter  might  act  on  spirit.  After  all^ 
were  matter  and  spirit  so  absolutely  different  ?  Was 
not  spirit  some  sort  of  pervading  essence^  some  subtle 
ethereal  fluid,  differing  from  matter  principally  in 
being  less  gross  and  dense  ?  This  was  the  point  to 
which  they  went  down  rapidly  enough ;  the  point  to 
which  all  philosophies,  I  firmly  believe,  will  descend, 
which  do  not  keep  in  sight  that  the  spiritual  means  the 
moral.  In  trying  to  make  it  mean  exclusively  the- 
intellectual,  they  will  degrade  it  to  mean  the  merely 
logical  and  abstract ;  and  when  that  is  found  to  be  a 
barren  and  lifeless  phantom,  a  mere  projection  of  the 
human  brain,  attributing  reality  to  mere  conceptions 
and  names,  and  confusing  the  subject  with  the  object^ 
as  logicians  say  truly  the  Neoplatonists  did,  then  in 
despair,  the  school  will  try  to  make  the  spiritual  some- 
thing real,  or,  at  least,  something  conceivable,  by 
reinvesting  it  with  the  properties  of  matter,  and  talking 
of  it  as  if  it  were  some  manner  of  gas,  or  heat,  or 
electricity,  or  force,  pervading  time  and  space,  con- 
ditioned by  the  accidents  of  brute  matter,  and  a  part 
of  that  nature  which  is  born  to  die. 

The  culmination  of  all  this  confusion  we  see  in 
Proclus.  The  unfortunate  Hypatia,  who  is  the  most 
important  personage  between  him  and  lamblichus,  has 
left  no  writings  to  our  times ;  we  can  only  judge  of  her 


94  ALEXANDRIA  AND   HER   SCHOOLS.  [lect. 

doctrine  by  that  of  her  instructors  and  her  pupils. 
Proclus  was  taught  by  the  men  who  had  heard  her 
lecture;  and  the  golden  chain  of  the  Platonic  succession 
descended  from  her  to  him.  His  throne,  however,  was 
at  Athens,  not  at  Alexandria.  After  the  murder  of  the 
maiden  philosopher,  Neoplatonism  prudently  retired  to 
•Greece.  But  Proclus  is  so  essentially  the  child  of  the 
Alexandrian  school  that  we  cannot  pass  him  over. 
Indeed,  according  to  M.  Cousin,  as  I  am  credibly 
informed,  he  is  the  Greek  philosopher ;  the  flower  and 
crown  of  all  its  schools ;  in  whom,  says  the  learned 
Frenchman,  ^^are  combined,  and  from  whom  shine 
forth,  in  no  irregular  or  uncertain  rays,  Orpheus, 
Pythagoras,  Plato,  Aristotle,  Zeno,  Plotinus,  Porphyry, 
and  lamblichus ;  ^^  and  who  ^^  had  so  comprehended 
all  religions  in  his  mind,  and  paid  them  such  equal 
reverence,  that  he  was,  as  it  were,  the  priest  of  the 
whole  universe !  ^^ 

I  have  not  the  honour  of  knowing  much  of 
M.  Cousin^s  works.  I  never  came  across  them  but  on 
one  small  matter  of  fact,  and  on  that  I  found  him 
copying  at  second  hand  an  anachronism  which  one 
would  have  conceived  palpable  to  any  reader  of  the 
original  authorities.  This  is  all  I  know  of  him,  saving 
these  his  raptures  over  Proclus,  of  which  I  have  quoted 
only  a  small  portion,  and  of  which  I  can  only  say,  in 
Mr.  Thomas  Carlyle^s  words,  "  What  things  men  will 
worship,  in  their  extreme  need !  ^'  Other  moderns, 
however,  have  expressed  their  admiration  of  Proclus ; 
and,  no  doubt,  many  neat  sayings  may  be  found  in  him 
(for  after  all  he  was  a  Greek),  which  will  be  both 
pleasing  and  useful  to  those  who  consider  philosophic 
method  to  consist  in  putting  forth  strings  of  brilHant 
apophthegms,  careless  about  either  their  consistency  or 


III.]  NEOPLATONISM.  95 

coberence :  but  of  the  method  of  Plato  or  Aristotle^  any 
more  tban  of  that  of  Kant  or  Mill,  you  will  find  nothing 
in  him.  He  seems  to  my  simplicity  to  be  at  once  the 
most  timid  and  servile  of  commentators,  and  the  most 
cloudy  of  declaimers.  He  can  rave  symbolism  like 
Jacob  Bohmen^  but  without  an  atom  of  his  originality 
and  earnestness.  He  can  develop  an  inverted  pyramid 
of  da3monology,  like  Father  Newman  himself,  but 
without  an  atom  of  his  art,  his  knowledge  of  human 
cravings.  He  combines  all  schools,  truly,  Chaldee  and 
Egyptian  as  well  as  Greek ;  but  only  scraps  from  their 
mummies,  drops  from  their  quintessences,  which  satisfy 
the  heart  and  conscience  as  little  as  they  do  the  logical 
faculties.  His  Greek  gods  and  heroes,  even  his 
Alcibiades  and  Socrates,  are  "ideas ;^^  that  is,  symbols 
of  certain  notions  or  qualities :  their  flesh  and  bones, 
their  heart  and  brain,  have  been  distilled  away,  till 
nothing  is  left  but  a  word,  a  notion,  which  may  patch 
a  hole  in  his  huge  heaven-and-earth-embracing  system. 
He,  too,  is  a  commentator  and  a  deducer ;  all  has  been 
discovered;  and  he  tries  to  discover  nothing  more. 
Those  who  followed  him  seem  to  have  commented  on 
his  comments.  With  him  Neoplatonism  properly  ends. 
Is  its  last  utterance  a  culmination  or  a  fall  ?  Have  the 
Titans  scaled  heaven,  or  died  of  old  age,  "  exhibiting,^ ^ 
as  Gibbon  says  of  them,  "  a  deplorable  instance  of  the 
senility  of  the  human  mind  ?  ^^  Eead  Proclus,  and 
judge  for  yourselves :  but  first  contrive  to  finish  every- 
thing else  you  have  to  do  which  can  possibly  be  useful 
to  any  human  being.  Life  is  short,  and  Art — at  least 
the  art  of  obtaining  practical  guidance  from  the  last 
of  the  Alexandrians — very  long. 

And  yet — if  Proclus  and  his  school  became  gradually 
unfaithful  to  the  great  root-idea  of  their  philosophy. 


96  ALEXANDRIA  AND   HER   SCHOOLS.  [lect.. 

we  must  not  imitate  them.  We  must  not  believe  that 
the  last  of  the  Alexandrians  was  under  no  divine 
teaching,  because  he  had  be-systemed  himself  into 
confused  notions  of  what  that  teaching  was  like. 
Yes,  there  was  good  in  poor  old  Proclus ;  and  it  too 
came  from  the  only  source  whence  all  good  comes. 
Were  there  no  good  in  him  I  could  not  laugh  at  him  as  I 
have  done  ;  I  could  only  hate  him.  There  are  moments 
when  he  rises  above  his  theories;  moments  when  he 
recurs  in  spirit,  if  not  in  the  letter,  to  the  faith  of 
Homer,  almost  to  the  faith  of  Philo.  Whether  these 
are  the  passages  of  his  which  his  modern  admirers 
prize  most,  I  cannot  tell.  I  should  fancy  not :  never- 
theless I  will  read  you  one  of  them. 

He  is  about  to  commence  his  discourses  on  the 
Parmenides,  that  book  in  which  we  generally  now 
consider  that  Plato  has  been  most  untrue  to  himself^ 
and  fallen  from  his  usual  inductive  method  to  the 
ground  of  a  mere  a  'priori  theoriser — and  yet  of  which 
Proclus  is  reported  to  have  said,  and,  I  should  conceive,, 
said  honestly,  that  if  it,  the  Timgeus,  and  the  Orphic 
fragments  were  preserved,  he  did  not  care  whether 
every  other  book  on  earth  were  destroyed.  But  how 
does  he  commence  ? 

"  I  pray  to  all  the  gods  and  goddesses  to  guide  my 
reason  in  the  speculation  which  lies  before  me,  and 
having  kindled  in  me  the  pure  light  of  truth,  to  direct 
my  mind  upward  to  the  very  knowledge  of  the  things 
which  are,  and  to  open  the  doors  of  my  soul  to  receive 
the  divine  guidance  of  Plato,  and,  having  directed  my 
knowledge  into  the  very  brightness  of  being,  to 
withdraw  me  from  the  various  forms  of  opinion,  from 
the  apparent  wisdom,  from  the  wandering  about  things 
which  do  not  exist,  by  that  purest  intellectual  exercise 


III.]  NEOPLATONISM.  97 

about  the  things  which  do  exists  whereby  alone  the 
eye  of  the  soul  is  nourished  and  brightened^  as  Socrates 
says  in  the  Phaadrus ;  and  that  the  Noetic  Gods  will 
give  to  me  the  perfect  reason,  and  the  Noeric  Gods  the 
power  which  leads  up  to  this,  and  that  the  rulers  of  the 
Universe  above  the  heaven  will  impart  to  me  an  energy 
unshaken  by  material  notions  and  emancipated  from 
them,  and  those  to  whom  the  world  is  given  as  their 
dominion  a  winged  life,  and  the  angelic  choirs  a  true 
manifestation  of  divine  things,  and  the  good  daemons 
the  fulness  of  the  inspiration  which  comes  from  the 
Gods,  and  the  heroes  a  grand,  and  venerable,  and  lofty 
fixedness  of  mind,  and  the  whole  divine  race  together 
a  perfect  preparation  for  sharing  in  Plato^s  most 
mystical  and  far-seeing  speculations,  which  he  declares 
to  us  himself  in  the  Parmenides,  with  the  profundity 
befitting  such  topics,  but  which  he  {i.e.  his  master 
Syrianus)  completed  by  his  most  pure  and  luminous 
apprehensions,  who  did  most  truly  share  the  Platonic 
feast,  and  was  the  medium  for  transmitting  the  divine 
truth,  the  guide  in  our  speculations,  and  the  hierophant 
of  these  divine  words;  who,  as  I  think,  came  down 
as  a  type  of  philosophy,  to  do  good  to  the  souls  that 
are  here,  in  place  of  idols,  sacrifices,  and  the  whole 
mystery  of  purification,  a  leader  of  salvation  to  the 
men  who  are  now  and  who  shall  be  hereafter.  And 
may  the  whole  band  of  those  who  are'  above  us  be 
propitious ;  and  may  the  whole  force  which  they  supply 
be  at  hand,  kindling  before  us  that  light  which, 
proceeding  from  them,  may  guide  us  to  them/^ 

Surely  this  is  an  interesting  document.  The  last 
Pagan  Greek  prayer,  I  believe,  which  we  have  on 
record  ;  the  death-wail  of  the  old  world — not  without 
a  touch  of  melody.     One  cannot  altogether  admire  the 

VOL.  I. — H.  E.  H 


98  ALEXANDRIA  AND   HER  SCHOOLS.  [lect. 

style;  it  is  inflated^  pedantic^  written,  I  fear,  with,  a 
considerable  consciousness  tliat  lie  was  saying  the 
right  thing  and  in  the  very  finest  way  :  but  still  it  is 
a  prayer.  A  cry  for  light — by  no  means,  certainly, 
like  that  noble  one  in  Tennyson^s  ^'  In  Memoriam  : '' 

r 

j    So  runs  my  dream.     But  what  am  I  ? 
An  infant  crying  in  the  night ; 
An  infant  crying  for  the  light ; 
And  with  no  language  but  a  cry. 

Yet  he  asks  for  light :  perhaps  he  had  settled  already 
for  himself — like  too  many  more  of  us — what  sort  of 
light  he  chose  to  have:  but  still  the  eye  is  turned 
upward  to  the  sun,  not  inward  in  conceited  fancy  that 
self  is  its  own  illumination.  He  asks — surely  not  in 
vain.  There  was  light  to  be  had  for  asking.  That 
prayer  certainly  was  not  answered  in  the  letter :  it 
may  have  been  ere  now  in  the  spirit.  And  yet  it  is 
a  sad  prayer  enough.  Poor  old  man,  and  poor  old 
philosophy  ! 

This  lie  and  his  teachers  had  gained  by  despising 
the  simpler  and  yet  far  profounder  doctrine  of  the 
Christian  schools,  that  the  Logos,  the  Divine  Teacher 
in  whom  both  Christians  and  Heathens  believed,  was 
the  very  archetype  of  men,  and  that  He  had  proved  that 
fact  by  being  made  flesh,  and  dwelling  bodily  among 
them,  that  they  might  behold  His  glory,  full  of  grace  and 
truth,  and  see  that  it  was  at  once  the  perfection  of  man 
and  the  perfection  of  God :  that  that  which  was  most 
divine  was  most  human,  and  that  which  was  most  human, 
most  divine.  That  was  the  outcome  of  fheir  meta- 
physic,  that  they  had  found  the  Absolute  One ;  because 
One  existed  in  whom  the  apparent  antagonism  between 
that  whicli  is  eternally  and  that  which  becomes  in 


Til.]  NEOPLATONISM.  99 

time,  between  the  ideal  and  the  actual,  between  the 
spiritual  and  the  material,  in  a  word,  between  God  and 
man,  was  explained  and  reconciled  for  ever. 

And  Proclus^s  prayer,  on  the  other  hand,  was  the 
outcome  of  the  Neoplatonists'  metaphysic,  the  end 
of  all  their  search  after  the  One,  the  Indivisible,  the 
Absolute,  this  cry  to  all  manner  of  innumerable 
phantoms,  ghosts  of  ideas,  ghosts  of  traditions,  neither 
things  nor  persons,but  thoughts,  to  give  the  philosopher 
each  something  or  other,  according  to  the  nature  of 
each.  Not  that  he  very  clearly  defines  what  each  is 
to  give  him ;  but  still  he  feels  himself  in  want  of  all 
manner  of  things,  and  it  is  as  well  to  have  as  many 
friends  at  court  as  possible — Noetic  Gods,  Noeric  Gods, 
rulers,  angels,  daemons,  heroes — to  enable  him  to  do 
what  ?  To  understand  Plato's  most  mystical  and  far- 
seeing  speculations.  The  Eternal  Nous,  the  In- 
tellectual Teacher  has  vanished  further  and  further 
off ;  further  off  still  some  dim  vision  of  a  supreme 
Goodness.  Infinite  spaces  above  that  looms  through 
the  mist  of  the  abyss  a  Primaeval  One.  But  even  that 
has  a  predicate,  for  it  is  one;  it  is  not  pure  essence. 
Must  there  not  be  something  beyond  that  again, 
which  is  not  even  one,  but  is  nameless,  inconceivable, 
absolute  ?  What  an  abyss !  How  shall  the  human 
mind  find  anything  whereon  to  rest,  in  the  vast 
nowhere  between  it  and  the  object  of  its  search? 
The  search  after  the  One  issues  in  a  wail  to  the 
innumerable ;  and  kind  gods,  angels,  and  heroes,  not 
human  indeed,  but  still  conceivable  enough  to  satisfy 
at  least  the  imagination,  step  in  to  fill  the  void,  as 
they  have  done  since,  and  may  do  again ;  and  so,  as 
Mr.  Carlyle  has  it,  "the  bottomless  pit  got  roofed 
•over,^^  as  it  may  be  again  ere  long. 

H  2 


100  ALEXANDRIA  AND   HER   SCHOOLS.  [lect. 

Are  we  then  to  say,  that  Neoplatonism  was  a 
failure  ?  That  Alexandria,  during  four  centuries  of 
profound  and  earnest  thought,  added  nothing  ? 
Heaven  forbid  that  we  should  say  so  of  a  philosophy 
which  has  exercised  on  European  thought,  at  the 
crisis  of  its  noblest  life  and  action,  an  influence  as  great 
as  did  the  Aristotelian  system  during  the  Middle  Ages. 
We  must  never  forget,  that  during  the  two  centuries 
which  commence  with  the  fall  of  Constantinople,  and 
end  with  our  civil  wars,  not  merely  almost  all  great 
thinkers,  but  courtiers,  statesmen,  warriors,  poets, 
were  more  or  less  Neoplatonists.  The  Greek  gram- 
marians, who  migrated  into  Italy,  brought  with  them 
the  works  of  Plotinus,  lamblichus,  and  Proclus ;  and 
their  gorgeous  reveries  were  welcomed  eagerly  by  the 
European  mind,  just  revelling  in  the  free  thought  of 
youthful  manhood.  And  yet  the  Alexandrian  im- 
potence for  any  practical  and  social  purposes  was  to 
be  manifested,  as  utterly  as  it  was  in  Alexandria  or  in 
Athens  of  old.  Ficinus  and  Picus  of  Mirandola 
worked  no  deliverance,  either  for  Italian  morals  or 
polity,  at  a  time  when  such  deliverance  was  needed 
bitterly  enough.  Neoplatonism  was  petted  by 
luxurious  and  heathen  popes,  as  an  elegant  play 
of  the  cultivated  fancy,  which  could  do  their  real 
power,  their  practical  system,  neither  good  nor 
harm.  And  one  cannot  help  feeling,  while  reading 
the  magnificent  oration  on  Supra-sensual  Love,  which 
Castiglione,  in  his  admirable  book  "The  Courtier/^  puts 
into  the  mouth  of  the  profligate  Bembo,  how  near 
mysticism  may  lie  not  merely  to  dilettantism  or  to 
Pharisaism,  but  to  sensuality  itself.  But  in  England, 
during   Elizabeth^s  reign,  the   practical  weakness  of 


m.]  NEOPLATONISM.  101 

Neoplatonism  was  compensated  by  the  noble  practical 
life  wHcli  men  were  compelled  to  live  in  those  great 
times;  by  the  strong  hold  which  they  had  of  the 
ideas  of  family  and  national  life,  of  law  and  personal 
faith.  And  I  cannot  but  believe  it  to  have  been  a 
mighty  gain  to  such  men  as  Sidney,  Raleigh,  and 
Spenser,  that  they  had  drunk,  however  slightly,  of 
the  wells  of  Proclus  and  Plotinus.  One  cannot  read 
Spenser^s  ^^  Fairy  Queen,^^  above  all  his  Garden  of 
Adonis,  and  his  cantos  on  Mutability,  without  feeling 
that  his  Neoplatonism  must  have  kept  him  safe  from 
many  a  dark  eschatological  superstition,  many  a  narrow 
and  bitter  dogmatism,  which  was  even  then  torment- 
ing the  English  mind,  and  must  have  helped  to  give  him 
altogether  a  freer  and  more  loving  conception,  if  not 
a  consistent  or  accurate  one,  of  the  wondrous  harmony 
of  that  mysterious  analogy  between  the  physical  and 
the  spiritual,  which  alone  makes  poetry  (and  I  had 
almost  said  philosophy  also)  possible,  and  have  taught 
him  to  behold  alike  in  suns  and  planets,  in  flowers  and 
insects,  in  man  and  in  beings  higher  than  man,  one 
glorious  order  of  love  and  wisdom,  linking  them  all 
to  Him  from  whom  they  all  proceed,  rays  from  His 
cloudless  sunlight,  mirrors  of  His  eternal  glory. 

But  as  the  Elizabethan  age,  exhausted  by  its  own 
fertility,  gave  place  to  the  Caroline,  Neoplatonism  ran 
through  much  the  same  changes.  It  was  good  for  us, 
after  all,  that  the  plain  strength  of  the  Puritans,  un- 
philosophical  as  they  were,  swept  it  away.  One  feels 
in  reading  the  later  Neoplatonists,  Henry  More,  Smith, 
even  Cud  worth  (valuable  as  he  is),  that  the  old 
accursed  distinction  between  the  philosopher,  the 
scholar,  the  illuminate,  and  the  plain  righteous  man. 


102  ALEXANDEIA    AND   HEE   SCHOOLS.       [lect.  iir. 

was  growing  up  again  very  fast.  The  school  from 
which  the  *^EeHgio  Medici  ^^  issued  was  not  likely  to 
make  any  bad  men  good^  or  any  foolish  men  wise. 

Besides^  as  long  as  men  were  continuing  to  quote 
poor  old  Proclus  as  an  irrefragable  authority^  and 
believing  that  he^  forsooth^  represented  the  sense  of 
Plato,  the  new-born  Baconian  philosophy  had  but 
little  chance  in  the  world.  Bacon  had  been  right 
in  his  dislike  of  Platonism  years  before,  though  he 
was  unjust  to  Plato  himself.  It  was  Proclus  whom 
he  was  really  reviling;  Proclus  as  Plato^s  com- 
mentator and  representative.  The  lion  had  for  once 
got  into  the  ass^s  skin,  and  was  treated  accordingly. 
The  true  Platonic  method,  that  dialectic  which  the 
Alexandrians  gradually  abandoned,  remains  yet  to  be 
tried,  both  in  England  and  in  Germany;  and  I  am 
much  mistaken,  if,  when  fairly  used,  it  be  not  found 
the  ally,  not  the  enemy,  of  the  Baconian  philosophy  ; 
in  fact,  the  inductive  method  applied  to  words,  as  the 
expressions  of  Metaphysic  Laws,  instead  of  to  natural 
phenomena,  as  the  expressions  of  Physical  ones.  If 
you  wish  to  see  the  highest  instances  of  this  method, 
read  Plato  himself,  not  Proclus.  If  you  wish  to  see 
how  the  same  xi^ethod  can  be  applied  to  Christian 
truth,  read  the  dialectic  passages  in  Augustine^s 
^^  Confessions."'^  Whether  or  not  you  shall  agree  with 
their  conclusions,  you  will  not  be  likely,  if  you  have 
a  truly  scientific  habit  of  mind,  to  complain  that  they 
want  either  profundity^  severity,  or  simplicity. 

So  concludes  the  history  of  one  of  the  Alexandrian 
schools  of  Metaphysic.  What  was  the  fate  of  the- 
other  is  a  subject  which  I  must  postpone  to  my  next 
Lecture. 


LECTURE  IV. 

THE  CROSS  AND  THE  CRESCENT. 

I  TRIED  to  point  out^  in  my  last  Lecture^  the  causes 
which  led  to  the  decay  of  the  Pagan  metaphysic  of 
Alexandria.  We  have  now  to  consider  the  fate  of  the 
Christian  school. 

You  may  have  remarked  that  I  have  said  little  or 
nothing  about  the  positive  dogmas  of  Clement,  Origen, 
and  their  disciples ;  but  have  only  brought  out  the 
especial  points  of  departure  between  them  and  the 
Heathens.  My  reason  for  so  doing  was  twofold  :  first, 
I  could  not  have  examined  them  without  entering  on 
controversial  ground;  next,  I  am  very  desirous  to 
excite  some  of  my  hearers,  at  least,  to  examine  these 
questions  for  themselves. 

I  entreat  them  not  to  listen  to  the  hasty  sneer  to 
which  many  of  late  have  given  way,  that  the  Alex- 
andrian divines  were  mere  mystics,  who  corrupted 
Christianity  by  an  admixture  of  Oriental  and  Greek 
thought.  My  own  belief  is  that  they  expanded  and 
corroborated  Christianity,  in  spite  of  great  errors  and 
defects  on  certain  points,  far  more  than  they  corrupted 
it ;  that  they  presented  it  to  the  minds  of  cultivated 


104  ALEXANDRIA  AND   HER  SCHOOLS/  [lect. 

and  scientific  men  in  the  only  form  in  which,  it  would 
have  satisfied  their  philosophic  aspirations,  and  yet 
contrived^  with  wonderful  wisdom,  to  ground  their 
philosophy  on  the  very  same  truths  which  they 
taught  to  the  meanest  slaves,  and  to  appeal  in 
the  philosophers  to  the  same  inward  faculty  to  which 
they  appealed  in  the  slave;  namely,  to  that  inward 
eye,  that  moral  sense  and  reason,  whereby  each  and 
every  man  can,  if  he  will,  "  judge  of  himself  that 
which  is  right/^  I  boldly  say  that  I  believe  the 
Alexandrian  Christians  to  have  made  the  best,  perhaps 
the  only,  attempt  yet  made  by  men,  to  proclaim  a  true 
world-philosophy;  whereby  I  mean  a  philosophy 
common  to  all  races,  ranks,  and  intellects,  embracing 
the  whole  phenomena  of  humanity,  and  not  an  arbitra- 
rily small  portion  of  them,  and  capable  of  being  under- 
stood and  appreciated  by  every  human  being  from  the 
highest  to  the  lowest.  And  when  you  hear  of  a  system 
of  reserve  in  teaching,  a  disciplina  arcani,  of  an 
esoteric  and  exoteric,  an  inner  and  outer  school, 
among  these  men,  you  must  not  be  frightened  at  the 
words,  as  if  they  spoke  of  priestcraft,  or  an  intellectual 
aristocracy,  who  kept  the  kernel  of  the  nut  for  them- 
selves, and  gave  the  husks  to  the  mob.  It  was  not  so 
with  the  Christian  schools  ;  it  was  so  with  the  Heathen 
ones.  The  Heathens  were  content  that  the  mob,  the 
herd,  should  have  the  husks.  Their  avowed  intention 
and  wish  was  to  leave  the  herd,  as  they  called  them,  in 
the  mere  outward  observance  of  the  old  idolatries, 
while  they  themselves,  the  cultivated  philosophers,  had 
the  monopoly  of  those  deeper  spiritual  truths  which 
were  contained  under  the  old  superstitions,  and  were 
too  sacred  to  be  profaned  by  the  vulgar  eyes.  The 
Christian   method   was   the    exact    opposite.      They 


IV.]        THE  CEOSS  AND  THE  CEESCENT.        105 

boldly  called  tliose  vulgar  eyes  to  enter  into  tlie  very 
holy  of  holies^  and  there  gaze  on  the  very  deepest  root- 
ideas  of  their  philosophy.  They  owned  no  ground  for 
their  own  speculations  which  was  not  common  to  the 
harlots  and  the  slaves  around.  And  this  was  what 
enabled  them  to  do  this;  this  was  what  brought  on 
them  the  charge  of  demagogism,  the  hatred  of  philo- 
sophers^ the  persecution  of  princes — that  their  ground 
was  a  moral  ground^  and  not  a  merely  intellectual  one; 
that  they  started,  not  from  any  notions  of  the  under- 
standing, but  from  the  inward  conscience,  that  truly 
pure  Reason  in  which  the  intellectual  and  the  moral 
spheres  are  united,  which  they  believed  to  exist,  how- 
ever dimmed  or  crushed,  in  every  human  being, 
capable  of  being  awakened,  purified,  and  raised  up  to 
a  noble  and  heroic  life.  They  concealed  nothing  moral 
from  their  disciples  :  only  they  forbade  them  to  meddle 
with  intellectual  matters,  before  they  had  had  a  regular 
intellectual  training.  The  witnesses  of  reason  and 
conscience  were  sufficient  guides  for  all  men,  and  at 
them  the  many  might  well  stop  short.  The  teacher 
only  needed  to  proceed  further,  not  into  a  higher 
region,  but  into  a  lower  one,  namely,  into  the  region  of 
the  logical  understanding,  and  there  make  deductions 
from,  and  illustrations  of,  those  higher  truths  which 
he  held  in  common  with  every  slave,  and  held  on  the 
same  ground  as  they. 

And  the  consequence  of  this  method  of  philosophis- 
ing was  patent.  They  were  enabled  to  produce,  in 
the  lives  of  millions,  generation  after  generation,  a 
more  immense  moral  improvement  than  the  world  had 
ever  seen  before.  Their  disciples  did  actually  become 
righteous  and  good  men,  just  in  proportion  as  they 
were  true  to  the  lessons  they  learnt.     They  did,  for 


106  ALEXANDEIA  AND   HER   SCHOOLS.  [lect. 

centuries^  work  a  distinct  and  palpable  deliverance  on 
the  earth  ;  while  all  the  solemn  and  earnest  meditation 
of  the  Neoplatonists^  however  good  or  true,  worked  no 
deliverance  whatsoever.  Plotinus  longed  at  one  time 
to  make  a  practical  attempt.  He  asked  the  Emperor 
Gallienus,  his  patron,  to  rebuild  for  him  a  city  in 
Campania ;  to  allow  him  to  call  it  Platonopolis,  and 
put  it  into  the  hands  of  him  and  his  disciples,  that 
they  might  there  realise  Plato^s  ideal  republic.  Luckily 
for  the  reputation  of  Neoplatonism,  the  scheme  was 
swamped  by  the  courtiers  of  Gallienus,  and  the  earth 
was  saved  the  sad  and  ludicrous  sight  of  a  realised 
Laputa ;  probably  a  very  quarrelsome  one.  That  was 
his  highest  practical  conception :  the  foundation  of  a 
new  society :  not  the  regeneration  of  society  as  it 
existed. 

That  work  was  left  for  the  Christian  schools  ;  and 
up  to  a  certain  point  they  performed  it.  They  made 
men  good.  This  was  the  test,  which  of  the  schools 
was  in  the  right :  this  was  the  test,  which  of  the  two 
had  hold  of  the  eternal  roots  of  metaphysic.  Cicero 
says,  that  he  had  learnt  more  philosophy  from  the 
Laws  of  the  Twelve  Tables  than  from  all  the  Greeks. 
Clement  and  his  school  might  have  said  the  same  of 
the  Hebrew  Ten  Commandments  and  Jewish  Law, 
which  are  so  marvellously  analogous  to  the  old  Eoman 
laws,  founded,  as  they  are,  on  the  belief  in  a  Supreme 
Being,  a  Jupiter — literally  a  Heavenly  Father — who 
is  the  source  and  the  sanction  of  law ;  of  whose  justice 
man^s  justice  is  the  pattern ;  who  is  the  avenger  of 
crimes  against  marriage,  property,  life ;  on  whom 
depends  the  sanctity  of  an  oath.  And  so,  to  compare 
great  things  with  small,  there  was  a  truly  practical 
human  element  here  in  the  Christian  teaching ;  purely 


IV.]  THE   CROSS   AND    THE    CEESCENT.  107 

ethical  and  metajoliysical^  and  yet  palpable  to  tlie 
simplest  and  lowest^  whicli  gave  to  it  a  regenerating 
force  whicli  the  highest  efforts  of  Neoplatonism  could 
never  attain. 

And  yet  Alexandrian  Christianity^  notoriously 
enough^  rotted  away,  and  perished  hideously.  Most 
true.  But  what  if  the  causes  of  its  decay  and  death 
were  owing  to  its  being  untrue  to  itself  ? 

I  do  not  say  that  they  had  no  excuses  for  being 
untrue  to  their  own  faith.  We  are  not  here  to  judge 
them.  That  peculiar  subtlety  of  mind,  which  rendered 
the  Alexandrians  the  great  thinkers  of  the  then  world,, 
had  with  Christians^  as  well  as  Heathens,  the  effect  of 
alluring  them  away  from  practice  to  speculation.  The 
Christian  school,  as  was  to  be  expected  from  the  moral 
ground  of  their  philosophy,  yielded  to  it  far  more 
slowly  than  the  Heathen,  but  they  did  yield,  and 
especially  after  they  had  conquered  and  expelled  the- 
Heathen  school.  Moreover,  the  long  battle  with  the 
Heathen  school  had  stirred  up  in  them  habits  of 
exclusiveness,  of  denunciation;  the  spirit  which  cannot 
assert  a  fact,  without  dogmatising  rashly  and  harshly 
on  the  consequences  of  denying  that  fact.  Their 
minds  assumed  a  permanent  habit  of  combativeness. 
Having  no  more  Heathens  to  fight,  they  began  fight- 
ing each  other,  excommunicating  each  other;  denying 
to  all  who  differed  from  them  any  share  of  that  light,, 
to  claim  which  for  all  men  had  been  the  very  ground 
of  their  philosophy.  Not  that  they  would  have  refused 
the  Logos  to  all  men  in  words.  They  would  have 
cursed  a  man  for  denying  the  existence  of  the  Logos 
in  every  man;  but  they  would  have  equally  cursed 
him  for  acting  on  his  existence  in  practice,  and  treat- 
ing the  heretic  as  one  who  had  that  within  him  to 


108  ALEXANDRIA  AND   HER   SCHOOLS.  [lect. 

whicli  a  preacher  miglit  appeal.  Thus  they  became 
Dogmatists;  that  is,  men  who  assert  a  truth  so  fiercely, 
as  to  forget  that  a  truth  is  meant  to  be  used,  and  not 
merely  asserted — if,  indeed,  the  fierce  assertion  of  a 
truth  in  frail  man  is  not  generally  a  sign  of  some 
secret  doubt  of  it,  and  in  inverse  proportion  to  his 
practical  living  faith  in  it :  just  as  he  who  is  always 
telling  you  that  he  is  a  man,  is  not  the  most  likely  to 
behave  like  a  man.  And  why  did  this  befall  them  ? 
Because  they  forgot  practically  that  the  light  proceeded 
from  a  Person.  They  could  argue  over  notions  and 
dogmas  deduced  from  the  notion  of  His  personality : 
but  they  were  shut  up  in  those  notions ;  they  had  for- 
gotten that  if  He  was  a  Person,  His  eye  was  on  them. 
His  rule  and  kingdom  within  them ;  and  that  if  He 
was  a  Person,  He  had  a  character,  and  that  that 
character  was  a  righteous  and  a  loving  character  :  and 
therefore  they  were  not  ashamed,  in  defending  these 
notions  and  dogmas  about  Him,  to  commit  acts  ab- 
horrent to  His  character,  to  lie,  to  slander,  to  intrigue, 
to  hate,  even  to  murder,  for  the  sake  of  what  they 
madly  called  His  glory  :  but  which  was  really  only 
their  own  glory — the  glory  of  their  own  dogmas;  of 
propositions  and  conclusions  in  their  own  brain,  which, 
true  or  false,  were  equally  heretical  in  their  mouths, 
becaase  they  used  them  only  as  watchwords  of  division. 
Orthodox  or  unorthodox,  they  lost  the  knowledge  .of 
God,  for  they  lost  the  knowledge  of  righteousness,  and 
love,  and  peace.  That  Divine  Logos,  and  theology  as 
a  whole,  receded  further  and  further  aloft  into  abysmal 
heights,  as  it  became  a  mere  dreary  system  of  dead 
scientific  terms,  having  no  practical  bearing  on  their 
hearts  and  lives ;  and  then  they,  as  the  Neoplatonists 
had  done  before  them,  filled   up  the  void  by  those 


IV.]  THE   CROSS   AND   THE   CRESCENT.  109 

daemonologies,,  images,  base  Fetish,  worships,  which 
made  the  Mohammedan  invaders  regard  them,  and 
I  believe  justly,  as  polytheists  and  idolaters,  base  as 
the  pagan  Arabs  of  the  desert. 

I  cannot  but  believe  them,  moreover,  to  have  been 
untrue  to  the  teaching  of  Clement  and  his  school,  in 
that  coarse  and  materialist  admiration  of  celibacy 
which  ruined  Alexandrian  society,  as  their  dogmatic 
ferocity  ruined  Alexandrian  thought.  The  Creed  which 
taught  them  that  in  the  person  of  the  Incarnate  Logos, 
that  wliich  was  most  divine  had  been  proved  to  be 
most  human,  that  whichi  was  most  human  had  been 
proved  to  be  most  divine,  ought  surely  to  have  given 
to  them,  as  it  has  given  to  modern  Europe,  nobler, 
clearer,  simpler  views  of  the  true  relation  of  the  sexes. 
However,  on  this  matter  they  did  not  see  their  way. 
Perhaps,  in  so  debased  an  age,  so  profligate  a  world, 
as  that  out  of  which  Christianity  had  risen,  it  was 
impossible  to  see  the  true  beauty  and  sanctity  of  those 
primary  bonds  of  humanity.  And  while  the  relation 
of  the  sexes  was  looked  on  in  a  wrong  light,  all  other 
social  relations  were  necessarily  ^Iso  misconceived. 
^^  The  very  ideas  of  family  and  national  life,^^  as  it  has 
been  said,  ^^  those  two  divine  roots  of  the  Church, 
severed  from  which  she  is  certain  to  wither  away  into 
that  most  cruel  and  most  godless  of  spectres,  a  religious 
world,  had  perished  in  the  East,  from  the  evil  influence 
of  the  universal  practice  of  slave-holding,  as  well  as 
from  the  degradation  of  that  Jewish  nation  which  had 
been  for  ages  the  great  witness  for  these  ideas ;  and 
all  classes,  like  their  forefather  Adam — like,  indeed, 
the  Old  Adam — the  selfish,  cowardly,  brute  nature  in 
every  man  and  in  every  age — were  shifting  the  blame 
of  sin  from  their  own  consciences  to  human  relationships 


110  ALEXANDRIA  AND   HER   SCHOOLS.  [lect. 

and  duties,  and  therein,  to  the  God  who  had  appointed 
them  ;  and  saying,  as  of  old,  ^  The  woman  whom  Thou 
gavest  to  be  with  me,  she  gave  me  of  the  tree,  and  I 
did  eat/ '' 

Much  as  Christianity  did,  even  in  Egypt,  for  woman, 
by  asserting  her  moral  and  spiritual  equality  with  the 
man,  there  seems  to  have  been  no  suspicion  that  she 
was  the  true  complement  of  the  man,  not  merely  by 
softening  him,  but  by  strengthening  him;  that  true 
manhood  can  be  no  more  developed  without  the  in- 
fluence of  the  woman,  than  true  womanhood  without 
the  influence  of  the  man.  There  is  no  trace  among  the 
Egyptian  celibates  of  that  chivalrous  woman-worship 
which  our  Gothic  forefathers  brought  with  them  into 
the  West,  which  shed  a  softening  and  ennobling  light 
round  the  mediseval  convent  life,  and  warded  off  for 
centuries  the  worst  effects  of  monasticism.  Among 
the  religious  of  Egypt,  the  monk  regarded  the  nun, 
the  nun  the  monk,  with  dread  and  aversion;  while 
both  looked  on  the  married  population  of  the  opposite 
sex  with  a  coarse  contempt  and  disgust  which  is  hardly 
credible,  did  not  the  foul  records  of  it  stand  written 
to  this  day,  in  Rosweyde^s  extraordinary  ^^  Vitae  Patrum 
Eremiticorum  ;''  no  barren  school  of  metaphysic,  truly, 
for  those  who  are  philosophic  enough  to  believe  that 
all  phenomena  whatsoever  of  the  human  mind  are 
worthy  matter  for  scientific  induction. 

And  thus  grew  up  in  Egypt  a  monastic  world,  of 
such  vastness  that  it  was  said  to  equal  in  number  the 
laity.  This  produced,  no  doubt,  an  enormous  increase 
in  the  actual  amount  of  moral  evil.  But  it  produced 
three  other  effects,  which  were  the  ruin  of  Alexandria. 
First,  a  continually  growing  enervation  and  numerical 
decrease  of  the  population  ;  next,  a  carelessness  of,  and 


IV.]  THE-  CROSS   AND   THE   CRESCENT.  Ill 

contempt  for  social  and  political  life ;  and  lastly^  a 
most  brutalising  effect  on  the  lay  population ;  who, 
told  that  they  were,  and  believing  themselves  to  be, 
beings  of  a  lower  order,  and  living  by  a  lower  standard, 
sank  down  more  and  more  generation  after  generation. 
They  were  of  the  world,  and  the  ways  of  the  world 
they  must  follow.  Political  life  had  no  inherent  sanctity 
or  nobleness ;  why  act  holily  and  nobly  in  it  ?  Family 
life  had  no  inherent  sanctity  or  nobleness;  why  act 
holily  and  nobly  in  it  either,  if  there  were  no  holy, 
noble,  and  divine  principle  or  ground  for  it  ?  And 
thus  grew  up,  both  in  Egypt,  Syria,  and  Byzantium,  a 
chaos  of  profligacy  and  chicanery,  in  rulers  and  people, 
in  the  home  and  the  market,  in  the  theatre  and  the 
senate,  such  as  the  world  has  rarely  seen  before  or 
since;  a  chaos  which  reached  its  culmination  in  the 
-seventh  century,  the  age  of  Justinian  and  Theodora, 
perhaps  the  two  most  hideous  sovereigns,  worshipped 
by  the  most  hideous  empire  of  parasites  and  hypocrites, 
cowards  and  wantons,  that  ever  insulted  the  long- 
suffering  of  a  righteous  God. 

But,  for  Alexandria  at  least,  the  cup  was  now  full. 
In  the  year  640  the  Alexandrians  were  tearing  each 
other  in  pieces  about  some  Jacobite  and  Melchite  con- 
troversy, to  me  incomprehensible,  to  you  unimportant, 
because  the  fighters  on  both  sides  seem  to  have  lost 
(as  all  parties  do  in  their  old  age)  the  knowledge  of 
what  they  were  fighting  for,  and  to  have  so  bewildered 
the  question  with  personal  intrigues,  spites,  and  quarrels, 
as  to  make  it  nearly  as  enigmatic  as  that  famous  con- 
temporary war  between  the  blue  and  green  factions  at 
Constantinople,  which  began  by  backing  in  the  theatre, 
the  charioteers  who  drove  in  blue  dresses,  against  those 
who  drove  in  green ;  then  went  on  to  identify  them- 


112  ALEXANDRIA  AND    HER   SCHOOLS.  [lect. 

selves  eacli  witli  one  of  the  prevailing  theological 
factions ;  gradually  developed^  the  one  into  an  aristo- 
cratic^ the  other  into  a  democratic^  religious  party;  and 
ended  by  a  civil  war  in  the  streets  of  Constantinople^ 
accompanied  by  the  most  horrible  excesses^  which  had 
nearly,  at  one  time,  given  up  the  city  to  the  flames^ 
and  driven  Justinian  from  his  throne. 

In  the  midst  of  these  Jacobite  and  Melchite  con- 
troversies and  riots,  appeared  before  the  city  the 
armies  of  certain  wild  and  unlettered  Arab  tribes. 
A  short  and  fruitless  struggle  followed ;  and,  strange 
to  say,  a  few  months  swept  away  from  the  face  of  the 
earth,  not  only  the  wealth,  the  commerce,  the  castles, 
and  the  liberty,  but  the  philosophy  and  the  Christianity 
of  Alexandria ;  crushed  to  powder  by  one  fearful  blow, 
all  that  had  been  built  up  by  Alexander  and  the 
Ptolemies,  by  Clement  and  the  philosophers,  and  made 
void,  to  all  appearance,  nine  hundred  years  of  human 
toil.  The  people,  having  no  real  hold  on  their  hereditary 
Creed,  accepted,  by  tens  of  thousands,  that  of  the 
Mussulman  invaders.  The  Christian  remnant  became 
tributaries ;  and  Alexandria  dwindled,  from  that  time 
forth,  into  a  petty  seaport  town. 

And  now — can  we  pass  over  this  new  metaphysical 
school  of  Alexandria  ?  Can  we  help  inquiring  in  what 
the  strength  of  Islamism  lay  ?  I,  at  least,  cannot. 
I  cannot  help  feeling  that  I  am  bound  to  examine  in 
what  relation  the  creed  of  Omar  and  Amrou  stands  to 
the  Alexandrian  speculations  of  five  hundred  years, 
and  how  it  had  power  to  sweep  those  speculations 
utterly  from  the  Eastern  mind.  It  is  a  difficult 
problem;  to  me^  as  a  Christian  priest,  a  very  awful 
problem.  What  more  awful  historic  problem,  than  to 
see  the  lower  creed  destroying  the  higher  ?  to  see  God> 


IV.]  THE   CROSS   AND   THE   CRESCENT.  113 

as  it  were,  undoing  his  own  work,  and  repenting  Him 
that  He  had  made  man  ?  Awful  indeed  :  but  I  can 
honestly  say,  that  it  is  one  from  the  investigation  of 
which  I  have  learnt — I  cannot  yet  tell  how  much :  and 
of  this  I  am  sure,  that  without  that  old  Alexandrian 
philosophy,  I  should  not  have  been  able  to  do  justice 
to  Islam ;  without  Islam  I  should  not  have  been  able 
to  find  in  that  Alexandrian  philosophy,  an  ever-living 
and  practical  element. 

I  must,  however,  first  entreat  you  to  dismiss  from 
your  minds  the  vulgar  notion  that  Mohammed  was  in 
anywise  a  bad  man,  or  a  conscious  deceiver,  pretending 
to  work  miracles,  or  to  do  things  which  he  did  not  do. 
He  sinned  in  one  instance  :  but,  as  far  as  I  can  see, 
only  in  that  one — I  mean  against  what  he  must  have 
known  to  be  right.  I  allude  to  his  relaxing  in  his 
own  case  those  wise  restrictions  on  polygamy  which  he 
had  proclaimed.  And  yet,  even  in  this  case,  the  desire 
for  a  child  may  have  been  the  true  cause  of  his 
weakness.  He  did  not  see  the  whole  truth,  of  course  : 
but  he  was  an  infinitely  better  man  than  the  men 
around:  perhaps,  all  in  all,  one  of  the  best  men  of 
his  day.  Many  here  may  have  read  Mr.  Carlyle's 
vindication  of  Mohammed  in  his  Lectures  on  Hero 
Worship  ;  to  those  who  have  not,  I  shall  only  say,  that 
I  entreat  them  to  do  so ;  and  that  I  assure  them,  that 
though  I  differ  in  many  things  utterly  from  Mr.  Carlyle^s 
inferences  and  deductions  in  that  lecture,  yet  that  I  am 
convinced,  from  my  own  acquaintance  with  the  original 
facts  and  documents,  that  the  picture  there  drawn  of 
Mohammed  is  a  true  and  a  just  description  of  a  much- 
calumniated  man. 

Now,  what  was  the  strength  of  Islam  ?  The  common 
answer  is,  fanaticism  and  enthusiasm.    To  such  answers 

VOL.  I. — H.  E.  1 


114,  ALEXANDRIA  AND   HER   SCHOOLS.  [lect. 

I  can  only  rejoin :  Sucli  terms  must  be  defined  before 
tliey  are  used^  and  we  must  be  told  wliat  fanaticism  and 
enthusiasm  are.  Till  then  I  have  no  more  a  priori 
respect  for  a  long  word  ending  in  -ism  or  -asm  than  I 
have  for  one  ending  in  -ation  or  -ality.  But  while 
fanaticism  and  enthusiasm  are  being  defined — a  work 
more  difficult  than  is  commonly  fancied — we  will  go  on 
to  consider  another  answer.  We  are  told  that  the 
strength  of  Islam  lay  in  the  hope  of  their  sensuous 
Paradise  and  fear  of  their  sensuous  Gehenna.  If  so^ 
this  is  the  first  and  last  time  in  the  world^s  history  that 
the  strength  of  any  large  body  of  people — perhaps  of 
any  single  man — lay  in  such  a  hope.  History  gives  us 
innumerable  proofs  that  such  merely  selfish  motives 
are  the  parents  of  slavish  impotence^  of  pedantry  and 
conceit^  of  pious  frauds,  often  of  the  most  devilish 
cruelty :  but,  as  far  as  my  reading  extends,  of  nothing 
better.  Moreover,  the  Christian  Greeks  had  much  the 
same  hopes  on  those  points  as  the  Mussulmans ;  and 
similar  causes  should  produce  similar  effects  :  but  those 
hopes  gave  them  no  strength.  Besides,  according  to- 
the  Mussulmans^  own  account,  this  was  not  their  great, 
inspiring  idea ;  and  it  is  absurd  to  consider  the  wild 
battle-cries  of  a  few  imaginative  youths,  about  black- 
eyed  and  green-kerchiefed  Houris  calling  to  them  from 
the  skies,  as  representing  the  average  feelings  of  a 
generation  of  sober  and  self -restraining  men,  who 
showed  themselves  actuated  by  far  higher  motives. 

Another  answer,  and  one  very  popular  now,  is  that 
the  Mussulmans  were  strong,  because  they  believed 
what  they  said ;  and  the  Greeks  weak,  because  they 
did  not  believe  what  they  said.  Prom  this  notion  I 
shall  appeal  to  another  doctrine  of  the  very  same  men 
who  put  it  forth,  and  ask  them,  Can  any  man  be  strong; 


iv.j  THE   CROSS   AND   THE   CRESCENT.  115 

by  believing  a  lie  ?  Have  you  not  told  us,  nobly 
enough^  that  every  lie  is  by  its  nature  rotten,  doomed 
to  death,  certain  to  prove  its  own  impotence,  and  be 
shattered  to  atoms  the  moment  you  try  to  use  it,  to  bring 
it  into  rude  actual  contact  with  fact,  and  Nature,  and 
the  eternal  laws  ?  Faith  to  be  strong,  must  be  faith 
in  something  which  is  not  one^s  self ;  faith  in  some- 
thing eternal,  something  objective,  something  true_, 
which  would  exist  just  as  much  though  we  and  all  the 
world  disbelieved  it.  The  strength  of  belief  comes 
from  that  which  is  believed  in ;  if  you  separate  it 
from  that,  it  becomes  a  mere  self-opinion,  a  sensation 
of  positiveness ;  and  what  sort  of  strength  that  will 
give,  history  will  tell  us  in  the  tragedies  of  the  Jews 
who  opposed  Titus,  of  the  rabble  who  followed  Walter 
the  Penniless  to  the  Crusades,  of  the  Munster  Ana- 
baptists, and  many  another  sad  page  of  human  folly. 
It  may  give  the  fury  of  idiots;  not  the  deliberate 
might  of  valiant  men.  Let  us  pass  this  by,  then; 
believing  that  faith  can  only  give  strength  where  it  is 
faith  in  something  true  and  right :  and  go  on  to 
another  answer  almost  as  popular  as  the  last. 

We  are  told  that  the  might  of  Islam  lay  in  a  certain 
innate  force  and  savage  virtue  of  the  Arab  character.  If 
we  have  discovered  this  in  the  followers  of  Mohammed^ 
they  certainly  had  not  discovered  it  in  themselves.  They 
spoke  of  themselves,  rightly  or  wrongly,  as  men  who 
had  received  a  divine  light,  and  that  light  a  moral 
light,  to  teach  them  to  love  that  which  was  good^ 
and  refuse  that  which  was  evil ;  and  to  that  divine 
light  they  stedfastly  and  honestly  attributed  every 
right  action  of  their  lives.  Most  noble  and  affecting, 
in  my  eyes,  is  that  answer  of  Saad^s  aged  envoy  to 
Yezdegird,  king  of  Persia,  when  he  reproached  him 

I  2 


116  ALEXANDRIA  AND   HER   SCHOOLS.  [lect. 

with  tlie  past  savagery  and  poverty  of  tlie  Arabs. 
'^  Whatsoev^er  thou  hast  said/^  answered  the  old  man^ 
'^  regarding  the  former  condition  of  the  Arabs  is  true. 
There  food  was  green  lizards  ;  they  buried  their  infant 
daughters  alive ;  nay,  some  of  them  feasted  on  dead 
carcases,  and  drank  blood;  while  others  slew  their 
kinsfolk,  and  thought  themselves  great  and  valiant, 
when  by  so  doing  they  became  possessed  of  more 
property.  They  'were  clothed  with  hair  garments, 
they  knew  not  good  from  evil,  and  made  no  dis- 
tinction between  that  which  was  lawful  and  unlawful. 
Such  was  our  state ;  but  God  in  his  mercy  has  sent 
us,  by  a  holy  prophet,  a  sacred  volume,  which  teaches 
us  the  true  faith.^^ 

These  words,  I  think,  show  us  the  secret  of  Islam. 
They  are  a  just  comment  on  that  short  and  rugged 
chapter  of  the  Koran  which  is-said  to  have  been  Moham- 
med^s  first  attempt  either  at  prophecy  or  writing;  when, 
after  long  fasting  and  meditation  among  the  desert  hills, 
under  the  glorious  eastern  stars,  he  came  down  and 
told  his  good  Kadijah  that  he  had  found  a  great  thing, 
and  that  she  must  help  him  to  write  it  down.  And 
what  was  this  which  seemed  to  the  unlettered  camel- 
driver  so  priceless  a  treasure  ?  Not  merely  that  God 
was  one  God — vast  as  that  discovery  was — but  that 
he  was  a  God  ^^who  showeth  to  man  the  thing  which 
he  knew  not;  ^^  a  ^^  most  merciful  God;  '^  a  God,  in  a 
word,  who  could  be  trusted ;  a  God  who  would  teach 
and  strengthen;  a  God,  as  he  said,  who  would  give  him 
courage  to  set  his  face  like  a  flint,  and  would  put  an 
answer  in  his  mouth  when  his  idolatrous  countrymen 
cavilled  and  sneered  at  his  message  to  them,  to  turn  from 
their  idols  of  wood  and  stone,  and  become  righteous 
men,  as  Abraham  their  forefather  was  righteous. 


IV.]  THE   CROSS   AND   THE   CRESCENT.  117 

"  A  God  who  sliowetli  to  man  the  thing  which  he 
knew  not/^  That  idea  gave  might  to  Islam,  because  it 
was  a  real  idea,  an  eternal  fact;  the  result  of  a  true 
insight  into  the  character  o£  God.  And  that  idea  alone, 
believe  me,  will  give  conquering  might  either  to  creed, 
philosophy,  or  heart  of  man.  Each  will  be  strong, 
each  will  endure,  in  proportion  as  it  believes  that  God 
is  one  who  shows  to  man  the  thing  which  he  knew  not : 
as  it  believes,  in  short,  in  that  Logos  of  which  Saint 
John  wrote,  that  He  was  the  light  who  lightens  every 
man  who  comes  into  the  world. 

In  a  word,  the  wild  Koreish  had  discovered,  more 
or  less  clearly,  that  end  and  object  of  all  metaphysic 
whereof  I  have  already  spoken  so  often ;  that  external 
and  imperishable  beauty  for  which  Plato  sought  of  old  ; 
and  had  seen  that  its  name  was  righteousness,  and  that 
it  dwelt  absolutely  in  an  absolutely  righteous  person  ; 
and  moreover,  that  this  person  was  no  careless  self- 
contented  epicurean  deity ;  but  that  He  was,  as  they 
loved  to  call  Him,  the  most  merciful  God ;  that  He  cared 
for  men ;  that  He  desired  to  make  men  righteous.  Of 
that  they  could  not  doubt.  The  fact  was  palpable, 
historic,  present.  To  them  the  degraded  Koreish  of 
the  desert,  who  as  they  believed,  and  I  think  believed 
rightly,  had  fallen  from  the  old  Monotheism  of  their 
forefathers  Abraham  and  Ismael,  into  the  lowest 
fetishism,  and  with  that  into  the  lowest  brutality  and 
wretchedness — to  them,  while  they  were  making  idols 
of  wood  and  stone;  eating  dead  carcases ;  and  burying 
their  daughters  alive  ;  careless  of  chastity,  of  justice, 
of  property ;  sunk  in  unnatural  crimes,  dead  in  tres- 
passes and  sins;  hateful  and  hating  one  another — a 
man,  one  of  their  own  people  had  come,  saying:  *^I 
have  a  message  from  the  one  righteous  God.     His  curse 


118  ALEXANDRIA   AND  HER   SCHOOLS.  [lect. 

is  on  all  this,  for  it  is  nnlike  Himself.  He  will  liave 
you  righteous  men,  after  the  pattern  of  your  forefather 
Abraham.  Be  that,  and  arise,  body,  soul,  and  spirit, 
out  of  your  savagery  and  brutishness.  Then  you  shall 
be  able  to  trample  under  foot  the  profligate  idolaters, 
to  sweep  the  Greek  tyrants  from  the  land  which  they 
have  been  oppressing  for  centuries,  and  to  recover  the 
East  for  its  rightful  heirs,  the  children  of  Abraham. ^^ 
Was  this  not,  in  every  sense,  a  message  from  God  ?  I 
must  deny  the  philosophy  of  Clement  and  Augustine, 
I  must  deny  my  own  conscience,  my  own  reason, 
I  must  outrage  my  own  moral  sense,  and  confess 
that  I  have  no  immutable  standard  of  right,  that  I 
know  no  eternal  source  of  right,  if  I  deny  it  to 
have  been  one ;  if  I  deny  what  seems  to  me  the  palpable 
historic  fact,  that  those  wild  Koreish  had  in  them  a 
reason  and  a  conscience,  which  could  awaken  to  that 
message,  and  perceive  its  boundless  beauty,  its  bound- 
less importance,  and  that  they  did  accept  that  message, 
and  lived  by  it  in  proportion  as  they  received  it  fully, 
such  lives  as  no  men  in  those  times,  and  few  in  after 
times,  have  been  able  to  live.  If  I  feel,  as  I  do  feel, 
that  Abubekr,  Omar,  Abu  Obeidah,  and  Amrou,  were 
better  men  than  I  am,  I  must  throw  away  all  that 
Philo — all  that  a  Higher  authority — has  taught  me :  or 
I  must  attribute  their  lofty  virtues  to  the  one  source 
of  all  in  man  which  is  not  selfishness,  and  fancy,  and 
fury,  and  blindness  as  of  the  beasts  which  perish. 

Why,  then,  has  Islamism  become  one  of  the  most 
patent  and  complete  failures  upon  earth,  if  the  true 
test  of  a  system^s  success  be  the  gradual  progress  and 
amelioration  of  the  human  beings  who  are  under  its 
influence  ?  First,  I  believe,  from  its  allowing  polygamy? 
I  do  not  judge  Mohammed  for  having  allowed  it.     He 


IV.]  THE   CROSS   AND   THE   CRESCENT.  119 

found  it  one  of  the  ancestral  and  immemorial  customs 
of  his  nation.  He  found  it  throughout  the  Hebrew 
Scriptures.  He  found  it  in  the  case  of  Abraham^  his 
ideal  man ;  and,  as  he  believed^  the  divinely-inspired 
;ancestor  of  his  race.  It  seemed  to  him  that  what  was 
right  for  Abraham^  could  not  be  wrong  for  an  Arab. 
Ood  shall  judge  him,  not  I.  Moreover,  the  Christians 
of  the  East,  divided  into  either  monks  or  profligates ; 
and  with  far  lower  and  more  brutal  notions  of  the 
married  state  than  were  to  be  found  in  Arab  poetry 
and  legend,  were  the  very  last  men  on  earth  to  make 
him  feel  the  eternal  and  divine  beauty  of  that  pure 
wedded  love  which  Christianity  has  not  only  pro- 
olaimed,  but  commanded,  and  thereby  emancipated 
woman  from  her  old  slavery  to  the  stronger  sex.  And 
I  believe,  from  his  chivalrous  faithfulness  to  his  good 
wife  Kadijah,  as  long  as  she  lived,  that  Mohammed 
was  a  man  who  could  have  accepted  that  great  truth 
in  all  its  fulness,  had  he  but  been  taught  it.  He 
certainly  felt  the  evil  of  polygamy  so  strongly  as  to 
restrict  it  in  every  possible  way,  except  the  only  right 
way — namely,  the  proclamation  of  the  true  ideal  of 
marriage.  But  his  ignorance,  mistake,  sin,  if  you 
will,  was  a  deflection  from  the  right  law,  from  the 
true  constitution  of  man,  and  therefore  it  avenged 
itself.  That  chivalrous  respect  for  woman,  which 
was  so  strong  in  the  early  Mohammedans,  died  out. 
The  women  themselves — who,  in  the  first  few  years 
of  Islamism,  rose  as  the  men  rose,  and  became  their 
helpmates,  counsellors,  and  fellow-warriors- — degen- 
erated rapidly  into  mere  playthings.  I  need  not 
€nter  into  the  painful  subject  of  woman^s  present 
position  in  the  East,  and  the  social  consequences 
-thereof.     But  I  firmly  believe,  not  merely  as  a  theory. 


120  ALEXANDRIA  AND   HER   SCHOOLS.  [lect. 

but  as  a  fact  which  may  be  proved  by  abundant 
evidence^  that  to  polygamy  alone  is  owing  nine- 
tenths  of  the  present  decay  and  old  age  of  every 
Mussulman  nation ;  and  that  till  it  be  utterly  abolished, 
all  Western  civilisation  and  capital,  and  all  the  civil 
and  religious  liberty  on  earth,  will  not  avail  one  jot 
toward  their  revival.  You  must  regenerate  the  family 
before  you  can  regenerate  the  nation,  and  the  relation 
of  husband  and  wife  before  the  family;  because,  as 
long  as  the  root  is  corrupt,  the  fruit  will  be  corrupt 
also. 

But  there  is  another  cause  of  the  failure  of 
Islamism,  more  intimately  connected  with  those  meta- 
physical questions  which  we  have  been  hitherto 
principally  considering. 

Among  the  first  Mussulmans,  as  I  have  said,  there 
was  generally  the  most  intense  belief  in  each  man 
that  he  was  personally  under  a  divine  guide  and 
teacher.  But  their  creed  contained  nothing  which 
could  keep  up  that  belief  in  the  minds  of  succeeding 
generations.  They  had  destroyed  the  good  with  the 
evil,  and  they  paid  the  penalty  of  their  undistinguish- 
ing  wrath.  In  sweeping  away  the  idolatries  and 
fetish  worships  of  the  Syrian  Catholics,  the  Mussul- 
mans had  swept  away  also  that  doctrine  which  alone 
can  deliver  men  from  idolatry  and  fetish  worships 
— if  not  outward  and  material  ones,  yet  the  still  more 
subtle,  and  therefore  more  dangerous  idolatries  of 
the  intellect.  For  they  had  swept  away  the  belief 
in  the  Logos;  in  a  divine  teacher  of  every  human 
soul,  who  was,  in  some  mysterious  way,  the  pattern 
and  antitype  of  human  virtue  and  wisdom.  And 
more,  they  had  swept  away  that  belief  in  the  incarna- 
tion of  the  Logos,  which  alone  can  make  man  feel 


IV.]  THE   CROSS   AND   THE   CRESCENT.  121 

tliat  Ms  divine  teaclier  is  one  who  can  enter  into  tlie 
human  duties^  sorrows^  doubts^  of  each  human  spirit. 
And^  therefore^  when  Mohammed  and  his  personal 
friends  were  dead,  the  belief  in  a  present  divine 
teacher,  on  the  whole,  died  with  them ;  and  the 
Mussulmans  began  to  put  the  Koran  in  the  place  of 
Him  of  whom  the  Koran  spoke.  They  began  to 
worship  the  book — which  after  all  is  not  a  book,  but 
only  an  irregular  collection  of  Mohammed^s  medita- 
tions, and  notes  for  sermons — with  the  most  slavish 
and  ridiculous  idolatry.  They  fell  into  a  cabbalism, 
and  a  superstitious  reverence  for  the  mere  letters  and 
words  of  the  Koran,  to  which  the  cabbalism  of  the 
old  Eabbis  was  moderate  and  rational.  They  sur- 
rounded it,  and  the  history  of  Mohammed,  with  all 
ridiculous  myths,  and  prodigies,  and  lying  wonders, 
whereof  the  book  itself  contained  not  a  word;  and 
which  Mohammed,  during  his  existence,  had  denied 
and  repudiated,  saying  that  he  worked  no  miracles, 
and  that  none  were  needed ;  because  only  reason  was 
required  to  show  a  man  the  hand  of  a  good  God  in  all 
human  affairs.  Nevertheless,  these  later  Mussulmans 
found  the  miracles  necessary  to  confirm  their  faith  : 
and  why  ?  Because  they  had  lost  the  sense  of  a 
present  God,  a  God  of  order;  and  therefore  hankered, 
as  men  in  such  a  mood  always  will,  after  prodigious 
and  unnatural  proofs  of  His  having  been  once  present 
with  their  founder  Mohammed. 

And  in  the  meanwhile  that  absolute  and  omnipo- 
tent Being  whom  Mohammed,  arising  out  of  his  great 
darkness,  had  so  nobly  preached  to  the  Koreish, 
receded  in  the  minds  of  their  descendants  to  an 
unapproachable  and  abysmal  distance.  For  they  had 
lost  the  sense  of  His  present  guidance.  His  personal 


122  ALEXANDRIA  AND   HER   SCHOOLS.  [lect. 

care.  They  liad  lost  all  whicli  could  connect  Him 
with,  the  working  of  their  own  souls^  with  their 
human  duties  and  struggles^,  with  the  belief  that  His 
mercy  and  love  were  counterparts  of  human  mercy 
and  human  love ;  in  plain  English^  that  He  was  loving 
and  merciful  at  all.  The  change  came  very  gradually, 
thank  Grod ;  you  may  read  of  noble  sayings  and  deeds 
here  and  there,  for  many  centuries  after  Mohammed : 
but  it  came ;  and  then  their  belief  in  God^s  omni- 
potence and  absoluteness  dwindled  into  the  most 
dark,  and  slavish,  and  benumbing  fatalism.  His 
unchangeableness  became  in  their  minds  not  an  un- 
changeable purpose  to  teach,  forgive,  and  deliver 
men — as  it  seemed  to  Mohammed  to  have  been — but 
a  mere  brute  necessity,  an  unchangeable  purpose  to 
have  His  own  way,  whatsoever  that  way  might  be. 
That  dark  fatalism,  also,  has  helped  toward  the  decay 
of  the  Mohammedan  nations.  It  has  made  them 
careless  of  self -improvement ;  faithless  of  the  possi- 
bility of  progress ;  and  has  kept,  and  will  keep,  the 
Mohammedan  nations,  in  all  intellectual  matters,  whole 
ages  behind  the  Christian  nations  of  the  West. 

How  far  the  story  of  Omar^s  commanding  the 
baths  of  Alexandria  to  be  heated  with  the  books  from 
the  great  library  is  true,  we  shall  never  know.  Some 
have  doubted  the  story  altogether  :  but  so  many  fresh 
corroborations  of  it  are  said  to  have  been  lately 
discovered,  in  Arabic  writers,  that  I  can  hardly  doubt 
that  it  had  some  foundation  in  fact.  One  cannot  but 
believe  that  John  Philoponus,  the  last  of  the  Alexan- 
drian grammarians,  when  he  asked  his  patron  Amrou 
the  gift  of  the  library^  took  care  to  save  some,  at  least, 
of  its  treasures;  and  howsoever  strongly  Omar  may 
have  felt  or  said  that  all  books  which  agreed  with 


r^ 


^^/ 


rv.]  THE   CROSS   AND  THE   CRESCJE:^T.  ^^    A23 

the  Koran  were  useless,  and  all  wliicli  disagreed.  :^itli 
it  only  fit  to  be  destroyed^  the  general  :fe©ling  of  the^,- 
Moliammedan  leaders  was  very  different.^' -^-^^  tliey 
settled  in  the  various  countries  which  they  conquered, 
education  seems  to  have  been  considered  by  them  an 
important  object.  We  even  find  some  of  them,  in  the 
same  generation  as  Mohammed,  obeying  strictly  the 
Prophet^s  command  to  send  all  captive  children  to 
school — a  fact  which  speaks  as  well  for  the  Mussul- 
mans^ good  sense,  as  it  speaks  ill  for  the  state  of 
education  among  the  degraded  descendants  of  the 
Greek  conquerors  of  the  Bast.  Gradually  philosophic 
Schools  arose,  first  at  Bagdad,  and  then  at  Cordova ; 
and  the  Arabs  carried  on  the  task  of  commenting  on 
Aristotle^s  Logic,  and  Ptolemy^s  Megiste  Syntaxis — 
which  last  acquired  from  them  the  name  of  Almagest, 
by  which  it  was  so  long  known  during  the  Middle 
Ages. 

But  they  did  little  but  comment,  though  there 
was  no  Neoplatonic  or  mystic  element  in  their  com- 
mentaries. It  seems  as  if  Alexandria  was  preordained, 
by  its  very  central  position,  to  be  the  city  of  com- 
mentators, not  of  originators.  It  is  worthy  of  remark, 
that  Philoponus,  who  may  be  considered  as  the  man 
who  first  introduced  the  simple  warriors  of  the 
Koreish  to  the  treasures  of  Greek  thought,  seems  to 
have  been  the  first  rebel  against  the  Neoplatonist 
eclecticism.  He  maintained,  and  truly,  that  Porphyry, 
Proclus,  and  the  rest,  had  entirely  misunderstood 
Aristotle,  when  they  attempted  to  reconcile  him  with 
Plato,  or  incorporate  his  philosophy  into  Platonism. 
Aristotle  was  henceforth  the  text-book  of  Arab  savants. 
It  was  natural  enough.  The  Mussulman  mind  was 
trained  in  habits  of  absolute  obedience  to  the  authority 


124  ALEXANDRIA  AND   HER   SCHOOLS.  [lect. 

of  fixed  dogmas.  All  tliose  attempts  to  follow  out 
metaphysic  to  its  highest  object^  theology,  would  be 
useless  if  not  wrong  in  the  eyes  of  a  Mussulman,  who 
had  already  his  simple  and  sharply- defined  creed  on 
all  matters  relating  to  the  unseen  world.  With  him 
metaphysic  was  a  study  altogether  divorced  from 
man^s  higher  life  and  aspirations.  So  also  were 
physics.  What  need  had  he  of  Cosmogonies?  what 
need  to  trace  the  relations  between  man  and  the 
universe,  or  the  universe  and  its  Maker  ?  He  had  his 
definite  material  Elysium  and  Tartarus,  as  the  only 
ultimate  relation  between  man  and  the  universe ;  his 
dogma  of  an  absolute  fiat,  creating  arbitrary  and  once 
for  all,  as  the  only  relation  between  the  universe  and 
its  Maker  :  and  further  it  was  not  lawful  to  speculate. 
The  idea  which  I  believe  unites  both  physic  and  meta- 
physic with  man^s  highest  inspirations  and  widest 
speculations — the  Alexandria  idea  of  the  Logos,  of 
the  Deity  working  in  time  and  space  by  successive 
thoughts — he  had  not  heard  of ;  for  it  was  dead,  as  I 
have  said,  in  Alexandria  itself ;  and  if  he  had  heard 
of  it,  he  would  have  spurned  it  as  detracting  from  the 
absoluteness  of  that  abysmal  one  Being,  of  whom  he 
so  nobly  yet  so  partially  bore  witness.  So  it  was  to 
be;  doubtless  it  was  right  that  it  should  be  so. 
Man^s  eye  is  too  narrow  to  see  a  whole  truth,  his  brain 
too  weak  to  carry  a  whole  truth.  Better  for  him,  and 
better  for  the  world,  is  perhaps  the  method  on  which 
man  has  been  educated  in  every  age,  by  which  to  each 
school,  or  party,  or  nation,  is  given  some  one  great 
truth,  which  they  are  to  work  out  to  its  highest 
development,  to  exemplify  in  actual  life,  leaving  some 
happier  age — perhaps,  alas  1  only  some  future  state — 
to  reconcile  that  too  favoured  dogma  with  other  truths 


IV.]  THE   CROSS   AND    THE    CRESCENT.  125 

wliicli  lie  beside  it,  and  without  which   it  is  always 
incomplete^  and  sometimes  altogether  barren. 

But  such  schools  of  science^  founded  on  such  a 
ground  as  this,  on  the  mere  instinct  of  curiosity,  had  little 
chance  of  originality  or  vitality.  All  the  great  schools 
of  the  world,  the  elder  Greek  philosophy,  the  Alexan- 
drian, the  present  Baconian  school  of  physics,  have  had 
a  deeper  motive  for  their  search,  a  far  higher  object 
which  they  hope  to  discover.  But  indeed,  the  Mus- 
sulmans did  not  so  much  wish  to  discover  truth,  as  to 
cultivate  their  own  intellects.  For  that  purpose  a 
sharp  and  subtle  systematist,  like  Aristotle,  was  the 
very  man  whom  they  required ;  and  from  the  destruc- 
tion of  Alexandria  may  date  the  rise  of  the  Aristotelian 
philosophy.  Translations  of  his  works  were  made  into 
Arabic,  first,  it  is  said,  from  Persian  and  Syriac 
translations ;  the  former  of  which  had  been  made 
during  the  sixth  and  seventh  centuries,  by  the  wreck 
of  the  Neoplatonist  party,  during  their  visit  to  the, 
philosophic  Chozroos.  A  century  after,  they  filled 
Alexandria.  After  them  Almansoor,  Hairoun  Alras- 
chid,  and  their  successors,  who  patronised  the  Nes- 
torian  Christians,  obtained  from  them  translations 
of  the  philosophic,  medical,  and  astronomical  Greek 
works ;  while  the  last  of  the  Omniades,  Abdalrahman, 
had  introduced  the  same  literary  taste  into  Spain, 
where,  in  the  thirteenth  century,  Averroes  and  Mai- 
monides  rivalled  the  fame  of  Avicenna,  who  had 
Nourished  at  Bagdad  a  century  before. 

But,  as  I  have  said  already,  these  Arabs  seem  to 
have  invented  nothing;  they  only  commented.  And 
jet  not  only  commented;  for  they  preserved  for  us 
those  works  of  whose  real  value  they  were  so  little 
aware.   "  Averroes,  in  quality  of  commentator  on  Aris- 


126  ALEXANDRIA  AND   HER  SCHOOLS.  [lect. 

totle,  became  his  rival  in  the  minds  of  the  mediaeval 
schoolmen;  Avicenna,  in  quality  of  commentator  on 
Hippocrates  and  Galen,  was  for  centuries  the  text- 
book of  all  European  physicians  ;  while  Albatani  and 
Aboul  Wefa,  as  astronomers,  commented  on  Ptolemy, 
not  however  without  making  a  few  important  additions 
to  his  knowledge ;  for  Aboul  Wef a  discovered  a  third 
inequality  of  the  moon^s  motion,  in  addition  to  the 
two  mentioned  by  Ptolemy,  which  he  did,  according 
to  Professor  Whewell,  in  a  truly  philosophic  manner — 
an  apparently  solitary  instance,  and  one  which,  in  its 
own  day,  had  no  effect;  for  the  fact  was  forgotten, 
and  rediscovered  centuries  after  by  Tycho  Brahe.  To 
Albatani,  however,  we  owe  two  really  valuable  heir- 
looms. The  one  is  the  use  of  the  sine,  or  half-chord  of 
the  double  arc,  instead  of  the  chord  of  the  arc  itself, 
which  had  been  employed  by  the  Greek  astronomers  ; 
the  other,  of  even  more  practical  benefit,  -was  the 
introduction  of  the  present  decimal  arithmetic,  instead 
of  the  troublesome  sexagesimal  arithmetic  of  the 
Greeks.  These  ten  digits,  however,  seem,  says  Pro- 
fessor Whewell,  by  the  confession  of  the  Arabians 
themselves,  to  be  of  Indian  origin,  and  thus  form  no 
exception  to  the  sterility  of  the  Arabian  genius  in 
scientific  inventions.  Nevertheless  we  are  bound,  in 
all  fairness,  to  set  against  his  condemnation  of  the 
Arabs  Professor  De  Morgan^s  opinion  of  the  Moslem, 
in  his  article  on  Euclid  :  ^^  Some  writers  speak 
slightingly  of  this  progress,  the  results  of  which  they 
are  too  apt  to  compare  with  those  of  our  own  time. 
They  ought  rather  to  place  the  Saracens  by  the  side 
of  their  own  Gothic  ancestors;  and  making  some 
allowance  for  the  more  advantageous  circumstances 
under  which  the  first  started,  they  should  view  the 


IV.]  THE   CEOSS   AND   THE   CEESCENT.  12^ 

second  systematically  dispersing  the  remains  of  Greek 
civilisation^  while  tHe  first  were  concentrating  tlie 
geometry  of  Alexandria,  the  arithmetic  and  algebra  of 
India,  and  the  astronomy  of  both,  to  form  a  nucleus 
for  the  present  state  of  science/^ 

To  this  article  of  Professor  De  Morgan^s  on  Euclid,^ 
and  to  Professor  WhewelFs  excellent  ^^  History  of  the 
Inductive  Sciences/^  from  which  I,  being  neither  Arabic 
scholar  nor  astronomer,  have  drawn  most  of  my  facts 
about  physical  science,  I  must  refer  those  who  wish 
to  know  more  of  the  early  rise  of  physics,  and  of  their 
preservation  by  the  Arabs,  till  a  great  and  unexpected 
event  brought  them  back  again  to  the  quarter  of  the 
globe  where  they  had  their  birth,  and  where  alone 
they  could  be  regenerated  into  a  new  and  practical 
life. 

That  great  event  was  the  Crusades.  We  have 
heard  little  of  Alexandria  lately.  Its  intellectual 
glory  had  departed  westward  and  eastward,  to  Cordova 
and  to  Bagdad ;  its  commercial  greatness  had  left  it 
for  Cairo  and  Damietta.  But  Egypt  was  still  the 
centre  of  communication  between  the  two  great 
stations  of  the  Moslem  power,  and  indeed^  as  Mr. 
Lane  has  shown  in  his  most  valuable  translation  of  the 
^^  Arabian  Nights,^^  possessed  a  peculiar  life  and 
character  of  its  own. 

It  was  the  rash  object  of  the  Crusaders  to  ex- 
tinguish that  life.  Palestine  was  their  first  point  of 
attack :  but  the  later  Crusaders  seem  to  have  found, 
like  the  rest  of  the  world,  that  the  destinies  of 
Palestine  could  not  be  separated  from  those  of  Egypt  ; 
and  to  Damietta,  accordingly,  was  directed  that  last 

*  Smith's  "  Classical  Dictionary.*' 


128  ALEXANDRIA  AND   HER   SCHOOLS.  [lect. 

disastrous  attempt  of  St.  X/ouis^  wliicli  all  may  read  so 
graphically  described  in  tlie  pages  of  Joinville. 

The  Crusaders  failed  utterly  of  the  object  at  which 
they  aimed.  They  succeeded  in  an  object  of  which 
they  never  dreamed ;  for  in  those  Crusades  the  Moslem 
and  the  Christian  had  met  face  to  face,  and  found 
that  both  were  men,  that  they  had  a  common  humanity, 
a  common  eternal  standard  of  nobleness  and  virtue. 
So  the  Christian  knights  went  home  humbler  and 
wiser  men,  when  they  found  in  the  Saracen  emirs  the 
same  generosity,  truth,  mercy,  chivalrous  self-sacrifice, 
which  they  had  fancied  their  own  peculiar  possession, 
and  added  to  that,  a  civilisation  and  a  learning  which 
they  could  only  admire  and  imitate.  And  thus,  from 
the  era  of  the  Crusades,  a  kindlier  feeling  sprang  up 
between  the  Crescent  and  the  Cross,  till  it  was  again 
broken  by  the  fearful  invasions  of  the  Turks  throughout 
Eastern  Europe.  The  learning  of  the  Moslem,  as  well 
as  their  commerce,  began  to  pour  rapidly  into  Christen- 
dom, both  from  Spain,  Egypt,  and  Syria ;  and  thus 
the  Crusaders  were,  indeed,  rewarded  according  to 
their  deeds.  They  had  fancied  that  they  were  bound 
to  vindicate  the  possession  of  the  earth  for  Him  to 
whom  they  believed  the  earth  belonged.  He  showed 
them — or  rather  He  has  shown  us,  their  children — 
that  He  can  vindicate  His  own  dominion  better  far  than 
man  can  do  it  for  Him  ;  and  their  cruel  and  unjust  aim 
was  utterly  foiled.  That  was  not  the  way  to  make 
men  know  or  obey  Him.  They  took  the  sword,  and 
perished  by  the  sword.  But  the  truly  noble  element 
in  them — the  element  which  our  hearts  and  reasons 
recognise  and  love,  in  spite  of  all  the  loud  words  about 
the  folly  and  fanaticism  of  the  Crusades,  whensoever 
we  read  ^'  The  Talisman^^  or  "Ivanhoe^^ — the  element 


IV.]  THE   CROSS   AND   THE   CRESCENT.  129 

of  loyal  faith  and  self-sacrifice — did  not  go  unrequited. 
They  learnt  wider,  juster  views  of  man  and  virtue, 
which  I  cannot  help  believing  must  have  had  great 
effect  in  weakening  in  their  minds  their  old,  exclusive, 
and  bigoted  notions,  and  in  paving  the  way  for  the 
great  outburst  of  free  thought,  and  the  great  assertion 
of  the  dignity  of  humanity,  which  the  fifteenth  century 
beheld.  They  opened  a  path  for  that  influx  of 
scientific  knowledge  which  has  produced,  in  after 
centuries,  the  most  enormous  effects  on  the  welfare 
of  Europe,  and  made  life  possible  for  millions  who 
would  otherwise  have  been  pent  within  the  narrow 
bounds  of  Europe,  to  devour  each  other  in  the  struggle 
for  room  and  bread. 

But  those  Arabic  translations  of  Greek  authors 
were  a  fatal  gift  for  Egypt,  and  scarcely  less  fatal  gift 
for  Bagdad.  In  that  Almagest  of  Ptolemy,  in  that 
Organon  of  Aristotle,  which  the  Crusaders  are  said  to 
have  brought  home,  lay,  rude  and  embryotic,  the 
germs  of  that  physical  science,  that  geographical 
knowledge  which  has  opened  to  the  European  the 
commerce  and  the  colonisation  of  the  globe.  Within 
three  hundred  years  after  his  works  reached  Europe, 
Ptolemy  had  taught  the  Portuguese  to  sail  round 
Africa ;  and  from  that  day  the  stream  of  eastern 
wealth  flowed  no  longer  through  the  Red  Sea,  or  the 
Persian  Gulf,  on  its  way  to  the  new  countries  of  the 
West;  and  not  only  Alexandria,  but  Damietta  and 
Bagdad,  dwindled  down  to  their  present  insignificance. 
And  yet  the  whirligig  of  time  brings  about  its  revenges. 
The  stream  of  commerce  is  now  rapidly  turning  back 
to  its  old  channel;  and  British  science  bids  fair  to 
make  Alexandria  once  more  the  inn  of  all  the  nations. 

It  is  with  a  feeling  of  awe  that  one  looks  upon  the 

VOL.  I. — H.  E.  ^  K 


130  ALEXANDRIA  AND   HER   SCHOOLS.  [lect, 

liuge  possibilities  of   her  future.     Her  own  physical 
capacities^  as   the  great  mind  of   Napoleon   saw^  are 
what    they    always   have   been^   inexhaustible;     and 
science  has  learnt  to  set  at  naught  the  only  defect  of 
situation   which    has    ever    injured    her    prosperity^ 
namely,  the  short  land  passage  from  the  Nile  to  the 
Red  Sea.     The  fate  of  Palestine  is  now  more  than  ever 
bound   up   with   her   fate;    and  a  British  or  French 
colony  might,  holding  the  two  countries,  develop  itself 
into  a  nation   as   vast   as    sprang   from  Alexander's 
handful   of    Macedonians,  and   become   the   meeting 
point  for  the  nations  of   the  West   and  those  great 
Anglo-Saxon  peoples  who  seem  destined  to  spring  up 
in  the  Australian  ocean.     Wide  as   the   dream  may 
appear,  steam  has  made  it  a  far  narrower  one  than  the 
old  actual  fact,  that  for  centuries  the  Phoenician  and 
the  Arabian  interchanged  at  Alexandria  the  produce 
of  Britain  for  that  of  Ceylon  and  Hindostan.     And  as 
for  intellectual  development,  though  Alexandria  wants, 
as  she  has  always  wanted,  that  insular  and  exclusive 
position  which  seems    almost    necessary   to    develop 
original  thought  and  original  national  life,  yet  she  may 
still  act  as  the  point  of  fusion  for  distinct  schools  and 
polities^  and  the  young  and  buoyant  vigour  of   the 
new-born  nations  may  at  once  teach,  and  learn  from, 
the  prudence,  the  experience,  the  traditional  wisdom 
of  the  ancient  Europeans. 

This  vision,  however  possible,  may  be  a  far-off 
one :  but  the  first  step  towards  it,  at  least,  is  being 
laid  before  our  eyes — and  that  is,  a  fresh  reconciliation 
between  the  Crescent  and  the  Cross.  Apart  from  all 
political  considerations,  which  would  be  out  of  place- 
here,  I  hail,  as  a  student  of  philosophy,  the  school 
which  is  now,  both  in  Alexandria  and  in  Constanti-^ 


IV.]  THE  CROSS  AND  THE  CRESCENT.  131 

nople^  teaching  to  Moslem  and  to  Christians  the  same 
lesson  which  the  Crusaders  learnt  in  Egypt  five 
hundred  years  ago.  A  few  years^  more  perseverance 
in  the  valiant  and  righteous  course  which  Britain  has 
now  chosen^  will  reward  itself  by  opening  a  vast  field 
for  capital  and  enterprise,  for  the  introduction  of  civil 
and  religious  liberty  among  the  down-trodden  peasantry 
of  Egypt ;  as  the  Giaour  becomes  an  object  of  respect, 
and  trust,  and  gratitude  to  the  Moslem ;  and  as  the 
feeling  that  Moslem  and  Giaour  own  a  common 
humanity,  a  common  eternal  standard  of  justice  and 
mercy,  a  common  sacred  obligation  to  perform  our 
promises,  and  to  succour  the  oppressed,  shall  have 
taken  place  of  the  old  brute  wonder  at  our  careless 
audacity,  and  awkward  assertion  of  power,  which  now 
expresses  itself  in  the  somewhat  left-handed  Alexan- 
drian compliment — ^^  There  is  one  Satan,  and  there 
are  many  Satans :  but  there  is  no  Satan  like  a  Frank 
in  a  round  hat/^ 

It  would  be  both  uncourteous  and  unfair  of  me  to 
close  these  my  hasty  Lectures,  without  expressing  my 
hearty  thanks  for  the  great  courtesy  and  kindness 
which  I  have  received  in  this  my  first  visit  to  your 
most  noble  and  beautiful  city ;  and  often,  I  am  proud 
to  say,  from  those  who  differ  from  me  deeply  on  many 
important  points ;  and  also  for  the  attention  with  which 
I  have  been  listened  to  while  trying,  clumsily  enough, 
to  explain  dry  and  repulsive  subjects,  and  to  express 
opinions  which  may  be  new,  and  perhaps  startling,  to 
many  of  my  hearers.  If  my  imperfect  hints  shall 
have  stirred  up  but  one  hearer  to  investigate  this 
obscure  and  yet  most  important  subject,  and  to 
examine  for  himseK  the  original   documents,  I   shall 

K  2 


132  ALEXANDRIA  AND   HER  SCHOOLS.        [lect.  iv. 

feel  that  my  words  in  this  place  have  not  been  spoken 
in  vain;  for  even  if  such  a  seeker  should  arrive  at 
conclusions  different  from  my  own  (and  I  pretend  to 
no  infallibility) J  he  will  at  least  have  learnt  new 
facts,  the  parents  of  new  thought,  perhaps  of  new 
action ;  he  will  have  come  face  to  face  with  new 
human  beings,  in  whom  he  will  have  been  compelled 
to  take  a  human  interest ;  and  will  surely  rise  from 
his  researches,  let  them  lead  him  where  they  will,  at 
least  somewhat  of  a  wider-minded  and  a  wider-hearted 
man. 


THE  ANCIEN  REGIME. 


THE  ANCIEN  REGIME. 


PEEFACE. 

The  rules  of  the  Eoyal  Institution  forbid  (and  wisely) 
religious  or  political  controversy.  It  was  therefore 
impossible  for  me  in  these  Lectures,  to  say  much  which 
had  to  be  said,  in  drawing  a  just  and  complete  picture 
of  the  Ancien  Eegime  in  France.  The  passages 
inserted  between  brackets,  which  bear  on  religious 
matters,  were  accordingly  not  spoken  at  the  Eoyal 
Institution. 

But  more.  It  was  impossible  for  me  in  these 
Lectures,  to  bring  forward  as  fully  as  I  could  have 
wished,  the  contrast  between  the  continental  nations 
and  England,  whether  now,  or  during  the  eighteenth 
•century.  But  that  contrast  cannot  be  too  carefully 
studied  at  the  present  moment.  In  proportion  as  it  is 
seen  and  understood,  will  the  fear  of  revolution  (if  such 
exists)  die  out  among  the  wealthier  classes  ;  and  the 
wish  for  it  (if  such  exists)  among  the  poorer ;  and  a 
large  extension  of  the  suffrage  will  be  looked  on  as — 
what  it  actually  is — a  safe  and  harmless  concession  to 


136  THE  ANCIEN  KEGIME. 

the  wishes — and,  as  I  liold^  to  the  just  rights — of  a 
large  portion  of  the  British  nation. 
77.  There  exists  in  Britain  now^  as  far  as  I  can  see,  no 
one  of  those  evils  which  brought  about  the  French 
Revolution.  There  is  no  widespread  misery,  and 
therefore  no  widespread  discontent,  among  the  classes 
who  live  by  hand-labour.  The  legislation  of  the  last 
generation  has  been  steadily  in  favour  of  the  poor,  as 
against  the  rich ;  and  it  is  even  more  true  now  than 
it  was  in  1789,  that — as  Arthur  Young  told  the  French 
mob  which  stopped  his  carriage — the  rich  pay  many 
taxes  (over  and  above  the  poor-rates,  a  direct  tax  on 
the  capitalist  in  favour  of  the  labourer)  more  than  are 
paid  by  the  poor.  '^  In  England  ^^  (says  M.  de  Tocque- 
ville  of  even  the  eighteenth  century)  ''  the  poor  man 
enjoyed  the  privilege  of  exemption  from  taxation ;  in 
France,  the  rich.^^  Equality  before  the  law  is  as  well- 
nigh  complete  as  it  can  be,  where  some  are  rich  and 
others  poor;  and  the  only  privileged  class,  it  some- 
times seems  to  me,  is  the  pauper,  who  has  neither 
the  responsibility  of  self-government,  nor  the  toil  of 
self-support. 

A  minority  of  malcontents,  some  justly,  some 
unjustly,  angry  with  the  present  state  of  things,  will 
always  exist  in  this  world.  But  a  majority  of  mal- 
contents we  shall  never  have,  as  long  as  the  workmen 
are  allowed  to  keep  untouched  and  unthreatened  their 
rights  of  free  speech,  free  public  meeting,  free  combi- 
nation for  all  purposes  which  do  not  provoke  a  breach 
of  the  peace.  There  may  be  (and  probably  are)  to  be 
found  in  London  and  the  large  towns,  some  of  those 
revolutionary  propagandists  who  have  terrified  and 
tormented  continental  statesmen  since  the  year  1815. 
But  they  are  far  fewer  in  number  than  in  1848;  far 


PEEFACE.  137 

fewer  still  (I  believe)  than,  in  1831;  and  tlieir  habits, 
notions,  temper,  whole  mental  organisation,  is  so 
utterly  alien  to  that  of  the  average  Englishman,  that 
it  is  only  the  sense  of  wrong  which  can  make  him  take 
counsel  with  them,  or  make  common  cause  with  them. 
Meanwhile,  every  man  who  is  admitted  to  a  vote,  is 
one  more  person  withdrawn  from  the  temptation  to 
disloyalty,  and  enlisted  in  maintaining  the  powers  that 
be — when  they  are  in  the  wrong,  as  well  as  when  they 
are  in  the  right.  For  every  Englishman  is  by  his 
nature  conservative;  slow  to  form  an  opinion;  cautious 
in  putting  it  into  effect;  patient  under  evils  which  seem 
irremediable ;  persevering  in  abolishing  such  as  seem 
remediable ;  and  then  only  too  ready  to  acquiesce  in 
the  earliest  practical  result;  to  "rest  and  be  thankful.'* 
His  faults,  as  well  as  his  virtues,  make  him  anti- 
revolutionary.  He  is  generally  too  dull  to  take  in  a 
great  idea ;  and  if  he  does  take  it  in,  often  too  selfish 
to  apply  it  to  any  interest  save  his  own.  But  now  and 
then,  when  the  sense  of  actual  injury  forces  upon  him 
a  great  idea,  like  that  of  Free-trade  or  of  Parliamentary 
Eeform,  he  is  indomitable,  however  slow  and  patient, 
in  translating  his  thought  into  fact :  and  they  will  not 
be  wise  statesmen  who  resist  his  dogged  determination. 
If  at  this  moment  he  demands  an  extension  of  the 
suffrage  eagerly  and  even  violently,  the  wise  statesman 
will  give  at  once,  gracefully  and  generously,  w^hat  the 
Englishman  will  certainly  obtain  one  day,  if  he  has  set 
his  mind  upon  it.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  he  asks  for 
it  calmly,  then  the  wise  statesman  (instead  of  mistaking 
English  reticence  for  apathy)  will  listen  to  his  wishes 
all  the  more  readily ;  seeing  in  the  moderation  of  the 
demand,  the  best  possible  guarantee  for  moderation  in 
the  use  of  the  thing  demanded. 


138  THE   ANCIEN  REGIME. 

Andj  be  it  always  remembered,  that  in  introducing 
these  men  into  the  ^^  balance  of  the  Constitution/^  we 
introduce  no  unknown  quantity.  Statesmen  ought  to 
know  them,  if  they  know  themselves ;  to  judge  what 
the  working  man  would  do  by  what  they  do  themselves. 
He  who  imputes  virtues  to  his  own  class  imputes  them 
also  to  the  labouring  class.  He  who  imputes  vices  to 
the  labouring  class,  imputes  them  to  his  own  class. 
For  both  are  not  only  of  the  same  flesh  and  blood,  but, 
what  is  infinitely  more  important,,  of  the  same  spirit ; 
of  the  same  race ;  in  innumerable  cases,  of  the  same 
ancestors.  For  centuries  past  the  most  able  of  these 
men  have  been  working  upwards  into  the  middle 
class,  and  through  it,  often,  to  the  highest  dignities, 
and  the  highest  family  connections ;  and  the  whole 
nation  knows  how  they  have  comported  themselves 
therein.  And,  by  a  reverse  process  (of  which  the 
physiognomist  and  genealogist  can  give  abundant 
proof),  the  weaker  members  of  that  class  which  was 
dominant  during  the  Middle  Age  have  been  sinking 
downward,  often  to  the  rank  of  mere  day-labourers, 
and  carrying  downward  with  them — sometimes  in  a 
very  tragical  and  pathetic  fashion — somewhat  of  the 
dignity  and  the  refinement  which  they  had  learnt  from 
their  ancestors. 

Thus  has  the  English  nation  (and  as  far  as  I  can 
see,  the  Scotch  likewise)  become  more  homogeneous 
than  any  nation  of  the  Continent,  if  we  except  France 
since  the  extermination  of  the  Frankish  nobility.  And 
for  that  very  reason,  as  it  seems  to  me,  it  is  more 
fitted  than  any  other  European  nation  for  the  exercise 
of  equal  political  rights ;  and  not  to  be  debarred  of 
them  by  arguments  drawn  from  countries  which  have 
been  governed — as  England  has  not  been — by  a  caste. 


PREFACE.  139 

The  civilisation,  not  of  mere  book-learning,  but  of 
the  heart ;  all  that  was  once  meant  by  ^^  manners  '^ — 
good  breeding,  high  feeling,  respect  for  self  and 
respect  for  others — are  jast  as  common  (as  far  as  I 
have  seen)  among  the  hand-workers  of  England  and 
Scotland,  as  among  any  other  class  ;  the  only  difference 
is,  that  these  qualities  develop  more  early  in  the  richer 
•classes,  owing  to  that  severe  discipline  of  our  public 
schools,  which  makes  mere  lads  often  fit  to  govern, 
because  they  have  learnt  to  obey  :  while  they  develop 
later — generally  not  till  middle  age — in  the  classes  who 
have  not  gone  through  in  their  youth  that  Spartan 
training,  and  who  indeed  (from  a  mistaken  conception 
of  liberty)  would  not  endure  it  for  a  day.  This  and 
other  social  drawbacks  which  are  but  too  patent,  retard 
the  manhood  of  the  working  classes.  That  it  should 
be  so,  is  a  wrong.  For  if  a  citizen  have  one  right 
above  all  others  to  demand  anything  of  his  country, 
it  is  that  he  should  be  educated;  that  whatever 
€apabilities  he  may  have  in  him,  however  small^  should 
have  their  fair  and  full  chance  of  development.  But 
the  cause  of  the  wrong  is  not  the  existence  of  a  caste, 
or  a  privileged  class,  or  of  anything  save  the  plain  fact, 
that  some  men  will  be  always  able  to  pay  more  for 
their  children's  education  than  others;  and  that  those 
children  will,  inevitably,  win  in  the  struggle  of  life. 

Meanwhile,  in  this  fact  is  to  be  found  the  most 
weighty,  if  not  the  only  argument  against  manhood 
suffrage,  which  would  admit  many — but  too  many, 
alas  ! — who  are  still  mere  boys  in  mind.  To  a  reason- 
able household  suffrage  it  cannot  apply.  The  man 
who  (being  almost  certainly  married^  and  having 
children)  can  afford  to  rent  a  £5  tenement  in  a  town, 
or  in  the  country  either,  has  seen  quite  enough  of  life^ 


140  THE   ANCIEN   EEGIME. 

and  learnt  quite  enough  of  it^  to  form  a  very  fair 
judgment  of  the  man  who  offers  to  represent  him  in 
Parliament ;  because  he  has  learnt,  not  merely  some- 
thing of  his  own  interest,  or  that  of  his  class,  but — 
what  is  infinitely  more  important — the  difference 
between  the  pretender  and  the  honest  man. 

The  causes  of  this  state  of  society,  which  is  peculiar 
to  Britain,  must  be  sought  far  back  in  the  ages.  It 
would  seem  that  the  distinction  between  ^*  earl  and 
churl  ^^  (the  noble  and  the  non-noble  freeman)  was 
crushed  out  in  this  island  by  the  two  Norman  conquests 
— that  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  nobility  by  Sweyn  and 
Canute ;  and  that  of  the  Anglo-Danish  nobility  by 
William  and  his  Frenchmen.  Those  two  terrible 
calamities,  following  each  other  in  the  short  space  of 
fifty  years,  seem  to  have  welded  together,  by  a  com- 
munity of  suffering,  all  ranks  and  races,  at  least  south 
of  the  Tweed;  and  when  the  English  rose  after  the 
storm,  they  rose  as  one  homogeneous  people,  never  to 
be  governed  again  by  an  originally  alien  race.  The 
English  nobility  were,  from  the  time  of  Magna  Charta, 
rather  an  official  nobility,  than,  as  in  most  continental 
countries,  a  separate  caste  ;  and  whatever  caste 
tendencies  had  developed  themselves  before  the  Wars 
of  the  Eoses  (as  such  are  certain  to  do  during  centuries 
of  continued  wealth  and  power),  were  crushed  out  by 
the  great  revolutionary  events  of  the  next  hundred 
years.  Especially  did  the  discovery  of  the  New  World, 
the  maritime  struggle  with  Spain,  the  outburst  of 
commerce  and  colonisation  during  the  reigns  of 
Elizabeth  and  James,  help  toward  this  good  result. 
It  was  in  vain  for  the  Lord  Oxford  of  the  day,  sneering 
at  EaleigVs  sudden  elevation,  to  complain  that  as  on 
the  virginals,  so  in  the  State,  ^^  Jacks  went  up,  and 


PREFACE.  141 

iheads  went  down/^  The  proudest  noblemen  were  not 
ashamed  to  have  their  ventures  on  the  high  seas,  and 
to  send  their  younger  sons  tradings  or  buccaneering, 
under  the  conduct  of  low-born  men  like  Drake,  who 
^^  would  like  to  see  the  gentleman  that  would  not  set 
his  hand  to  a  rope,  and  hale  and  draw  with  the 
mariners/^  Thus  sprang  up  that  respect  for,  even 
fondness  for,  severe  bodily  labour,  which  the  educated 
class  of  no  nation  save  our  own  has  ever  felt ;  and 
which  has  stood  them  in  such  good  stead,  whether  at 
home  or  abroad.  Thus,  too,  sprang  up  the  system  of 
society  by  which,  (as  the  ballad  sets  forth)  the  squire^s 
son  might  be  a  ^^  ^prentice  good,'^  and  marry 

**  The  bailiff's  daughter  dear 
That  dwelt  at  Islington," 

without  tarnishing,  as  he  would  have  done  on  the 
Continent,  the  scutcheon  of  his  ancestors.  That  which, 
has  saved  England  from  a  central  despotism,  such  as 
crushed,  during  the  eighteenth  century,  every  nation 
on  the  Continent,  is  the  very  same  peculiarity  which 
makes  the  advent  of  the  masses  to  a  share  in  political 
power  safe  and  harmless ;  namely,  the  absence  of 
caste,  or  rather  (for  there  is  sure  to  be  a  moral  fact 
underlying  and  causing  every  political  fact)  the 
absence  of  that  wicked  pride  which  perpetuates  caste ; 
forbidding  those  to  intermarry  whom  nature  and  fact 
pronounce  to  be  fit  mates  before  God  and  man. 

These  views  are  not  mine  only.  They  have  been 
already  set  forth  so  much  more  forcibly  by  M.  de 
Tocqueville,  that  I  should  have  thought  it  unnecessary 
to  talk  about  them,  were  not  the  rhetorical  phrases, 
''  Caste,''  "  Privileged  Classes,''  ''  Aristocratic  Bx- 
clusiveness,"  and  such-like,  bandied  about  again  just 


142  THE   ANCIEN  RIEGIME. 

now^  as  if  they  represented  facts.  If  there  remain  in 
this  kingdom  any  facts  whicli  correspond  to  those  words, 
let  them  be  abolished  as  speedily  as  possible  :  but  that 
such  do  remain  was  not  the  opinion  of  the  master  of 
modern  political  philosophy^  M.  de  Tocqueyille. 

He  expresses  his  surprise  ^^  that  the  fact  which 
distinguishes  England  from  all  other  modern  nations^ 
and  which  alone  can  throw  light  on  her  peculiarities, 
.  .  .  has  not  attracted  more  attention,  .  .  .  and 
that  habit  has  rendered  it,  as  it  were,  imperceptible 
to  the  English  themselves — that  England  was  the  only 
country  in  which  the  system  of  caste  had  been  not  only 
modified,  but  effectually  destroyed.  The  nobility  and 
the  middle  classes  followed  the  same  business,  embraced 
the  same  professions,  and,  what  is  far  more  significant, 
intermarried  with  each  other.  The  daughter  of  the 
greatest  nobleman  '^  (and  this^  if  true  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  has  become  far  more  true  of  the  nineteenth) 
^^  could  already,  without  disgrace,  marry  a  man  of 
yesterday.-*^  .  .  . 

^^  It  has  often  been  remarked  that  the  English 
nobility  has  been  more  prudent,  more  able,  and  less 
exclusive  than  any  other.  It  would  have  been  much 
nearer  the  truth  to  say,  that  in  England,  for  a  very 
long  time  past,  no  nobility,  properly  so  called^  have 
existed,  if  we  take  the  word  in  the  ancient  and  limited 
sense  it  has  everywhere  else  retained. ^^  .  .  . 

^^For  several  centuries  the  word  ^ gentleman^  ^^  (he 
might  have  added,  ^^ burgess  ^^)  ^^has  altogether  changed 
its  meaning  in  England ;  and  the  word  ^  roturier '  has 
ceased  to  exist.  In  each  succeeding  century  it  is 
applied  to  persons  placed  somewhat  lower  in  the  social 
scale '^  (as  the  "  bagman  ^^  of  Pickwick  has  become, 
and  has  deserved  to  become,  the  ^^  commercial  gentle- 


PEEFACE.  US- 

man  ^^  of  our  day).  ^'  At  length  it  travelled  with  the 
English  to  America,  where  it  is  used  to  designate 
every  citizen  indiscriminately.  Its  history  is  that  of 
democracy  itself/^   .  .  . 

^^  If  the  middle  classes  of  England,  instead  of 
making  war  upon  the  aristocracy,  have  remained  so 
intimately  connected  with  it,  it  is  not  especially  because 
the  aristocracy  is  open  to  all,  but  rather,  because  its 
outline  was  indistinct,  and  its  limit  unknown  :  not 
so  much  because  any  man  might  be  admitted  into  it, 
as  because  it  was  impossible  to  say  with  certainty 
when  he  took  rank  there  :  so  that  all  who  approached 
it  might  look  on  themselves  as  belonging  to  it ;  might 
take  part  in  its  rule,  and  derive  either  lustre  or  profit 
from  its  influence/^ 

Just  so ;  and  therefore  the  middle  classes  of  Britain, 
of  whatever  their  special  political  party,  are  conservative 
in  the  best  sense  of  that  word. 

For  there  are  not  three,  but  only  two,  classes  in 
England ;  namely,  rich  and  poor :  those  who  live  b^ 
capital  (from  the  wealthiest  landlord  to  the  smallest 
village  shopkeeper) ;  and  those  who  live  by  hand- 
labour.  Whether  the  division  between  those  two 
classes  is  increasing  or  not,  is  a  very  serious  question. 
Continued  legislation  in  favour  of  the  hand-labourer, 
and  a  beneficence  towards  him,  when  in  need,  such  as 
no  other  nation  on  earth  has  ever  shown,  have  done 
much  to  abolish  the  moral  division.  But  the  social 
division  has  surely  been  increased  during  the  last  half 
century,  by  the  inevitable  tendency,  both  in  commerce 
and  agriculture,  to  employ  one  large  capital,  where 
several  small  ones  would  have  been  employed  a  century 
ago.  The  large  manufactory,  the  large  shop,  the  larga 
estate,  the  large  farm,  swallows   up  the  small  ones. 


lU  THE   ANCIEN   R:]EGIME. 

The  yeoman^  the  thrifty  squatter  who  could  work  at 
two  or  three  trades  as  well  as  till  his  patch  of  moor^ 
the  hand-loom  weaver,  the  skilled  village  craftsman, 
have  all  but  disappeared.  The  handworker,  finding  it 
more  and  more  difficult  to  invest  his  savings,  has  been 
more  and  more  tempted  to  squander  them.  To  rise  to 
the  dignity  of  a  capitalist,  however  small,  was  growing 
impossible  to  him,  till  the  rise  of  that  co-operative 
movement,  which  will  do  more  than  any  social  or 
political  impulse  in  our  day  for  the  safety  of  English 
society,  and  the  loyalty  of  the  English  working 
classes.  And  meanwhile — ere  that  movement  shall 
have  spread  throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  the 
land^  and  have  been  applied,  as  it  surely  will  be  some 
day,  not  only  to  distribution,  not  only  to  manufacture, 
but  to  agriculture  likewise — till  then,  the  best  judges 
•of  the  working  men^s  worth  must  be  their  employers ; 
and  especially  the  employers  of  the  northern  manu- 
facturing population.  What  their  judgment  is,  is 
sufficiently  notorious.  Those  who  depend  most  on  the 
working  men,  who  have  the  best  opportunities  of 
knowing  them,  trust  them  most  thoroughly.  As  long 
as  great  manufacturers  stand  forward  as  the  political 
sponsors  of  their  own  workmen,  it  behoves  those  who 
cannot  have  had  their  experience,  to  consider  their 
opinion  as  conclusive.  As  for  that  ^^  influence  of  the 
higher  classes ''  which  is  said  to  be  endangered  just 
now ;  it  will  exist,  just  as  much  as  it  deserves  to  exist. 
Any  man  who  is  superior  to  the  many,  whether  in 
talents,  education,  refinement,  wealth,  or  anything 
else,  will  always  be  able  to  influence  a  number  of  men 
— and  if  he  thinks  it  worth  his  while,  of  votes — by 
just  and  lawful  means.  And  as  for  unjust  and 
unlawful  means,  let  those  who  prefer  them  keep  up 


PEEFACE.  (    ,\'  ,  145 

heart.  The  world  will  go  on  much  as  it/ did  before;'^  / 
and  be  always  quite  bad  enough  to  allow  fej-ibfery 
and  corruption,  jobbery  and  nepotism,  quackery  and''.', 
arrogance,  their  full  influence  over  our  home  and 
foreign  policy.  An  extension  of  the  suffrage,  however 
wide,  will  not  bring  about  the  millennium.  It  will 
merely  make  a  large  number  of  Englishmen  contented 
and  loyal,  instead  of  discontented  and  disloyal.  It 
may  make,  too,  the  educated  and  wealthy  classes  wiser 
by  awakening  a  wholesome  fear — perhaps,  it  may  be^ 
by  awakening  a  chivalrous  emulation.  It  may  put  the 
younger  men  of  the  present  aristocracy  upon  their 
mettle,  and  stir  them  up  to  prove  that  they  are  not  in 
the  same  effete  condition  as  was  the  French  noblesse 
in  1789.  It  may  lead  them  to  take  the  warnings  which 
have  been  addressed  to  them,  for  the  last  thirty  years, 
by  their  truest  friends — often  by  kinsmen  of  their  own. 
It  may  lead  them  to  ask  themselves  why,  in  a  world 
which  is  governed  by  a  just  God,  such  great  power  as 
is  palpably  theirs  at  present  is  entrusted  to  them,  save 
that  they  may  do  more  work,  and  not  less,  than  other 
men,  under  the  penalties  pronounced  against  those  to 
whom  much  is  given,  and  of  whom  much  is  required.  . 
It  may  lead  them  to  discover  that  they  are  in  a  world 
where  it  is  not  safe  to  sit  under  the  tree,  and  let  the 
ripe  fruit  drop  into  your  mouth  ;  where  the  ^^  competi- 
tion of  species  '^  works  with  ruthless  energy  among  all 
ranks  of  being,  from  kings  upon  their  thrones  to  the 
weeds  upon  the  waste ;  where  ^'  he  that  is  not  hammer, 
is  sure  to  be  anvil ;  ''  and  he  who  will  not  work, 
neither  shall  he  eat.  It  may  lead  them  to  devote  that 
energy  (in  which  they  surpass  so  far  the  continental 
aristocracies)  to  something  better  than  outdoor  amuse- 
ments   or    indoor    dilettantisms.      There    are    those 

VOL.  I. — H.  E.  L 


B6r  THE   ANCIEN  RiEGIME. 

among  tliem  who,  like  one  section  of  the  old  French 
noblesse,  content  themselves  with  mere  complaints  of 
^^  the  revolationary  tendencies  of  the  age/^  Let  them 
beware  in  time ;  for  when  the  many  are  on  the  march, 
the  few  who  stand  still  are  certain  to  be  walked  over. 
There  are  those  among  them  who,  like  another  section 
of  the  French  noblesse,  are  ready,  more  generously 
than  wisely,  to  throw  away  their  own  social  and 
political  advantages,  and  play  (for  it  will  never  be 
really  more  than  playing)  at  democracy.  Let  them, 
too,  beware.  The  penknife  and  the  axe  should  respect 
each  other;  for  they  were  wrought  from  the  same 
steel :  but  the  penknife  will  not  be  wise  in  trying  to 
fell  trees.  Let  them  accept  their  own  position,  not  in 
conceit  and  arrogance,  but  in  fear  and  trembling ;  and 
see  if  they  cannot  play  the  man  therein,  and  save  their 
own  class ;  and  with  it,  much  which  it  has  needed 
many  centuries  to  accumulate  and  to  organise,  and 
without  which  no  nation  has  yet  existed  for  a  single 
century.  They  are  no  more  like  the  old  French 
noblesse,  than  are  the  commercial  class  like  the  old 
French  bourgeoisie,  or  the  labouring  like  the  old 
French  peasantry.  Let  them  prove  that  fact  by  their 
deeds  during  the  next  generation  ;  or  sink  into  the 
condition  of  mere  rich  men,  exciting,  by  their  luxury 
and  laziness,  nothing  but  envy  and  contempt. 

Meanwhile,  behind  all  classes  and  social  forces — I 
had  almost  said,  above  them  all — stands  a  fourth 
estate,  which  will,  ultimately,  decide  the  form  which 
English  society  is  to  take :  a  Press  as  different  from 
the  literary  class  of  the  Ancien  Regime  as  is  every- 
thing else  English;  and  different  in  this — that  it  is 
free. 

The  French  Eevolution,  like  every  revolution  (it 


PKEFACE.  147 

seems  to  me)  wliicli  has  convulsed  tlie  nations  of 
Europe  for  the  last  eighty  years,  was  caused  immediately 
— whatever  may  have  been  its  more  remote  causes — 
by  the  suppression  of  thought ;  or^  at  least,  by  a  sense 
of  wrong  among  those  who  thought.  A  country  where 
every  man,  be  he  fool  or  wise,  is  free  to  speak  that 
which  is  in  him,  can  never  suffer  a  revolution.  The 
folly  blows  itself  off  like  steam,  in  harmless  noise ;  the 
wisdom  becomes  part  of  the  general  intellectual  stock 
of  the  nation,  and  prepares  men  for  gradual,  and 
therefore  for  harmless,  change. 

As  long  as  the  press  is  free,  a  nation  is  guaranteed 
against  sudden  and  capricious  folly,  either  from  above 
or  from  below.  As  long  as  the  press  is  free,  a  nation 
is  guaranteed  against  the  worse  evil  of  persistent  and 
obstinate  folly,  cloaking  itself  under  the  venerable 
shapes  of  tradition  and  authority.  For  under  a  free 
press,  a  nation  must  ultimately  be  guided  not  by  a 
caste,  not  by  a  class,  not  by  mere  wealth,  not  by  the 
passions  of  a  mob  :  but  by  mind ;  by  the  net  result  of 
all  the  common-sense  of  its  members ;  and  in  the 
present  default  of  genius,  which  is  un- common  sense, 
common-sense  seems  to  be  the  only,  if  not  the  best, 
safeguard  for  poor  humanity. 


1867. 


LEOTUEE  I 

Delivered  at  the  Royal  Institution,  London,  1867. 
CASTE. 

These  Lectures  are  meant  to  be  comments  on  the 
state  of  France  before  the  French  Revolution.  To 
English  society^  past  or  present,  I  do  not  refer.  For 
reasons  which  I  have  set  forth  at  length  in  an  in- 
troductory discourse,  there  never  was  any  Ancien 
Regime  in  England. 

Therefore,  when  the  Stuarts  tried  to  establish  in 
England  a  system  which  might  have  led  to  a  political 
condition  like  that  of  the  Continent,  all  classes  com- 
bined and  exterminated  them ;  while  the  course  of 
English  society  went  on  as  before. 

On  the  contrary,  England  was  the  mother  of  every 
movement  which  undermined,  and  at  last  destroyed, 
the  Ancien  Regime. 

From  England  went  forth  those  political  theories 
which,  transmitted  from  America  to  France,  became 
the  principles  of  the  French  Revolution.  From 
England  went  forth  the  philosophy  of  Locke,  with  all 
its  immense  results.  It  is  noteworthy,  that  when 
Voltaire  tries  to  persuade  people,  in  a  certain  famous 
passage,  that  philosophers  do  not  care  to  trouble  the 


LECT.  I,]  CASTE.  149 

world — of  the  ten  names  to  wliom  lie  does  honour, 
seven  names  are  Englisli.  '^  It  is/^  lie  says,  ^^  neither 
Montaigne,  nor  Locke,  nor  Boyle,  nor  Spinoza,  nor 
Hobbes,  nor  Lord  Shaftesbury,  nor  Mr.  Collins,  nor 
Mr.  Toland,  nor  Fludd,  nor  Baker,  who  have  carried 
the  torch  of  discord  into  their  countries. ^^  It  is  worth 
notice,  that  not  only  are  the  majority  of  these  names 
English,  but  that  they  belong  not  to  the  latter  but  to 
the  former  half  of  the  eighteenth  century ;  and  indeed, 
to  the  latter  half  of  the  seventeenth. 

So  it  was  with  that  Inductive  Physical  Science, 
which  helped  more  than  all  to  break  up  the  superstitions 
of  the  Ancien  Regime,  and  to  set  man  face  to  face 
with  the  facts  of  the  universe.  From  England,  towards 
the^  end  of  the  seventeenth  century,  it  was  promulgated 
by  such  men  as  Newton,  Boyle,  Sydenham,  Ray,  and 
the  first  founders  of  our  Royal  Society. 

In  England,  too,  arose  the  great  religious  move- 
ments of  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries — 
and  especially  that  of  a  body  which  I  can  never 
mention  without  most  deep  respect — the  Society  of 
Friends.  At  a  time  when  the  greater  part  of  the 
Continent  was  sunk  in  spiritual  sleep,  these  men  were 
reasserting  doctrines  concerning  man,  and  his  relation 
to  his  Creator,  which,  whether  or  not  all  believe  them 
(as  I  believe  them)  to  be  founded  on  eternal  fact,  all 
must  confess  to  have  been  of  incalculable  benefit  to 
the  cause  of  humanity  and  civilisation. 

From  England,  finally,  about  the  middle  of  the 

I  eighteenth  century,  went  forth — promulgated  by 
English  noblemen — that  freemasonry  which  seems  to 
have  been  the  true  parent  of  all  the  secret  societies  of 
Europe.     Of   this    curious    question,  more   hereafter. 


150  THE   ANCIEN   RIEGIME.  [lect. 

instead  of  falling,,  at  any  period^  into  tlie  stagnation 
of  the  Ancien  Regime^  was^  from  the  middle  of  the 
seventeenth  century^  in  a  state  of  intellectual  growth 
and  ferment  which  communicated  itself  finally  to  the 
continental  nations.  This  is  the  special  honour  of 
England;  universally  confessed  at  the  time.  It  was 
to  England  that  the  slowly-awakening  nations  looked^ 
as  the  source  of  all  which  was  noble^  true,  and  free,  in 
the  dawning  future. 

It  will  be  seen,  from  what  I  have  said,  that  I 
consider  the  Ancien  Regime  to  begin  in  the  seventeenth 
century.  I  should  date  its  commencement — as  far  as 
that  of  anything  so  vague,  unsystematic,  indeed 
anarchic,  can  be  defined — from  the  end  of  the  Thirty 
Tears^  War,  and  the  peace  of  Westphalia  in  1648. 

For  by  that  time  the  mighty  spiritual  struggles 
and  fierce  religious  animosities  of  the  preceding  century 
had  worn  themselves  out.  And,  as  always  happens, 
to  a  period  of  earnest  excitement  had  succeeded  one  of 
weariness,  disgust,  half -unbelief  in  the  many  questions 
for  which  so  much  blood  had  been  shed.  No  man 
had  come  out  of  the  battle  with  altogether  clean 
hands;  some  not  without  changing  sides  more  than 
once.  The  war  had  ended  as  one,  not  of  nations,  not 
even  of  zealots,  but  of  mercenaries.  The  body  of 
Europe  had  been  pulled  in  pieces  between  them  all ; 
and  the  poor  soul  thereof — as  was  to  be  expected — had 
fled  out  through  the  gaping  wounds.  Life,  mere 
existence,  was  the  most  pressing  need.  If  men  could 
— in  the  old  prophet^s  words — find  the  life  of  their 
hand,  they  were  content.  High  and  low  only  asked 
to  be  let  live.  The  poor  asked  it — slaughtered  on  a 
hundred  battle-fields,  burnt  out  of  house  and  home : 
vast  tracts  of  the  centre  of  Europe  were  lying  desert ;, 


I.]  CASTE.  151 

the  population  was  diminislied  for  several  generations. 
The  trading  classes^  ruined  by  the  long  war,  only- 
asked  to  be  let  live,  and  make  a  little  money.  The 
nobility,  too,  only  asked  to  be  let  live.  They  had 
lost,  in  the  long  struggle,  not  only  often  lands  and 
power,  but  their  ablest  and  bravest  men;  and  a 
weaker  and  meaner  generation  was  left  behind,  to  do 
the  governing  of  the  world.  Let  them  live,  and  keep 
what  they  had.  If  signs  of  vigour  still  appeared  in 
France,  in  the  wars  of  Louis  XIV.  they  were  feverish, 
factitious,  temporary — soon,  as  the  event  proved,  to 
droop  into  the  general  exhaustion.  If  wars  were  still 
to  be  waged  they  were  to  be  wars  of  succession,  wars 
of  diplomacy ;  not  wars  of  principle,  waged  for  the 
mightiest  invisible  interests  of  man.  The  exhaustion 
was  general;  and  to  it  we  must  attribute  alike  the 
changes  and  the  conservatism  of  the  Ancien  Regime. 
To  it  is  owing  that  growth  of  a  centralising  despotism, 
and  of  arbitrary  regal  power,  which  M.  de  Tocqueville 
has  set  forth  in  a  book  which  I  shall  have  occasion 
often  to  quote.  To  it  is  owing,  too,  that  longing, 
which  seems  to  us  childish,  after  ancient  forms, 
etiquettes,  dignities,  court  costumes,  formalities  diplo- 
matic, legal,  ecclesiastical.  Men  clung  to  them  as  to 
keepsakes  of  the  past — revered  relics  of  more  in- 
telligible and  better- ordered  times.  If  the  spirit  had 
been  beaten  out  of  them  in  a  century  of  battle,  that 
was  all  the  more  reason  for  keeping  up  the  letter. 
They  had  had  a  meaning  once,  a  life  once;  perhaps  there 
was  a  little  life  left  in  them  still;  perhaps  the  dry 
bones  would  clothe  themselves  with  flesh  once  more, 
and  stand  upon  their  feet.  At  least  it  was  useful  that 
the  common  people  should  so  believe.  There  was 
good  hope  that   the    simple   masses,  seeing   the   old 


152  THE   ANCIEN   REGIME,  [lect. 

dignities  and  formalities  still  parading  tlie  streets^ 
should  suppose  that  thej  still  contained  men,  and  were 
not  mere  wooden  figures,  dressed  artistically  in  official 
costume.  And,  on  the  whole,  that  hope  was  not 
deceived.  More  than  a  century  of  bitter  experience 
was  needed  ere  the  masses  discovered  that  their  ancient 
rulers  were  like  the  suits  of  armour  in  the  Tower  of 
London — empty  iron  astride  of  wooden  steeds,  and 
armed  with  lances  which  every  ploughboy  could  wrest 
out  of  their  hands,  and  use  in  his  own  behalf. 

The  mistake  of  the  masses  was  pardonable.  For 
those  suits  of  armour  had  once  held  living  men  ; 
strong,  brave,  wise  ;  men  of  an  admirable  temper ; 
doing  their  work  according  to  their  light,  not  alto- 
gether well — what  man  does  that  on  earth? — but 
well  enough  to  make  themselves  necessary  to,  and 
loyally  followed  by,  the  masses  whom  they  ruled. 
No  one  can  read  fairly  the  ^^  Gesta  Dei  per  Francos  in 
Oriente,^^  or  the  deeds  of  the  French  Nobility  in  their 
wars  with  England,  or  those  tales — however  legendary 
— of  the  medisGval  knights,  which  form  so  noble  an 
element  in  German  literature,  without  seeing,  that 
however  black  were  these  men^s  occasional  crimes, 
they  were  a  truly  noble  race,  the  old  Nobility  of  the 
Continent ;  a  race  which  ruled  simply  because,  without 
them,  there  would  have  been  naught  but  anarchy  and 
barbarism.  To  their  chivalrous  ideal  they  were  too 
often,  perhaps  for  the  most  part,  untrue  :  but,  partial 
and  defective  as  it  is,  it  is  an  ideal  such  as  never 
entered  into  the  mind  of  Celt  or  Gaul,  Hun  or  Sclav ; 
one  which  seems  continuous  with  the  spread  of  the 
Teutonic  conquerors.  They  ruled  because  they  did 
practically  raise  the  ideal  of  humanity  in  the  countries 
which  they  conquered,  a  whole  stage  higher.     They 


r,]  CASTE.  153 

ceased  to  rule  when  tliey  were^  througli  their  own  sins, 
caught  up  and  surpassed  in  the  race  of  progress  by 
the  classes  below  them. 

But,  even  when  at  its  best,  their  system  of  govern- 
ment had  in  it — like  all  human  invention — original 
sin;  an  unnatural  and  unrighteous  element,  which 
was  certain,  sooner  or  later,  to  produce  decay  and 
ruin.  The  old  Nobility  of  Europe  was  not  a  mere 
aristocracy.  It  was  a  caste  :  a  race  not  intermarrying 
with  the  races  below  it.  It  was  not  a  mere  aristocracy. 
For  that,  for  the  supremacy  of  the  best  men,  all 
societies  strive,  or  profess  to  strive.  And  such  a  true 
aristocracy  may  exist  independent  of  caste,  or  the 
hereditary  principle  at  all.  We  may  conceive  an 
Utopia,  governed  by  an  aristocracy  which  should  be 
really  democratic;  which  should  use,  under  developed 
forms,  that  method  which  made  the  mediaeval  priest- 
hood the  one  great  democratic  institution  of  old 
Christendom ;  bringing  to  the  surface  and  utilising 
the  talents  and  virtues  of  all  classes,  even  to  the 
lowest.  We  may  conceive  an  aristocracy  choosing 
out,  and  gladly  receiving  into  its  own  ranks  as  equals, 
every  youth,  every  maiden,  who  was  distinguished  by 
intellect,  virtue,  valour,  beauty,  without  respect  to 
rank  or  birth ;  and  rejecting  in  turn,  from  its  own 
ranks,  each  of  its  own  children  who  fell  below  some 
iofty  standard,  and  showed  by  weakliness,  dulness,  or 
baseness,  incapacity  for  the  post  of  guiding  and 
elevating  their  fellow- citizens.  Thus  would  arise 
a  true  aristocracy;  a  governing  body  of  the  really 
most  worthy — the  most  highly  organised  in  body  and 
in  mind — perpetually  recruited  from .  below  :  from 
which,  or  from  any  other  ideal,  we  are  yet  a  few 
thousand  years  distant. 


154  THE   ANCIEN  ElEGIME.  [lect. 

But  tlie  old  Ancien  Eegime  would  liave  shuddered^ 
did  shudder,  at  such  a  notion.  The  supreme  class  was 
to  keep  itself  pure^  and  avoid  all  taint  of  darker 
bloody  shutting  its  eyes  to  the  fact  that  some  of  its 
most  famous  heroes  had  been  born  of  such  left-handed 
marriages  as  that  of  Robert  of  Normandy  with  the 
tanner^s  daughter  of  Falaise.  ^*  Some  are  so  curious 
in  this  behalf^^^  says  quaint  old  Burton,  writing  about 
1650,  ^^  as  these  old  Romans,  our  modern  Venetians, 
Dutch,  and  French,  that  if  two  parties  dearly  love, 
the  one  noble,  the  other  ignoble,  they  may  not,  by  their 
laws,  match,  though  equal  otherwise  in  years,  fortunes, 
education,  and  all  good  affection.  In  Germany,  except 
they  can  prove  their  gentility  by  three  descents,  they 
scorn  to  match  with  them.  A  nobleman  must  marry 
a  noblewoman;  a  baron,  a  baron^s  daughter;  a  knight,, 
a  knight'^s.  As  slaters  sort  their  slates,  do  they 
degrees  and  families.''^ 

And  doubtless  this  theory- — like  all  which  have 
held  their  ground  for  many  centuries — at  first  repre- 
sented a  fact.  These  castes  were,  at  first,  actually 
superior  to  the  peoples  over  whom  they  ruled.  I 
cannot,  as  long  as  my  eyes  are  open,  yield  to  the 
modern  theory  of  the  equality — indeed  of  the  non- 
existence— of  races.  Holding,  as  I  do,  the  primaeval 
unity  of  the  human  race,  I  see  in  that  race  the  same 
inclination  to  sport  into  fresh  varieties,  the  same 
competition  of  species  between  those  varieties,  which 
Mr.  Darwin  has  pointed  out  among  plants  and  mere 
animals.  A  distinguished  man  arises ;  from  him  a 
distinguished  family;  from  it  a  distinguished  tribe, 
stronger,  cunninger  than  those  around.  It  asserts  its 
supremacy  over  its  neighbours  at  first  exactly  as  a 
plant  or  animal  would  do,  by  destroying,  and,  where 


I.]  CASTE.  15& 

possible^  eating  tliem ;  next^  having  grown  more 
prudent^  by  enslaving  them ;  next^  having  gained  a 
little  morality  in  addition  to  its  prudence^  by  civilising 
them^  raising  them  more  or  less  toward  its  own 
standard.  And  thus^  in  every  land^  civilisation  and 
national  life  has  arisen  out  of  the  patriarchal  state; 
and  the  Eastern  scheik^  with  his  wives_,  free  and  slave^ 
and  his  hundreds  of  fighting  men  born  in  his  house^ 
is  the  type  of  all  primaeval  rulers.  He  is  the  best 
man  of  his  horde — in  every  sense  of  the  word  best  ^ 
and  whether  he  have  a  right  to  rule  them  or  not^  they 
consider  that  he  has^  and  are  the  better  men  for  his 
guidance. 

Whether  this  ought  to  have  been  the  history  of 
primaeval  civilisation,  is  a  question  not  to  be  deter* 
mined  here.  That  it  is  the  history  thereof,  is  surely 
patent  to  anyone  who  will  imagine  to  himself  what 
must  have  been.  In  the  first  place,  the  strongest  and 
cunningest  savage  must  have  had  the  chance  of  pro- 
ducing children  more  strong  and  cunning  than  the 
average;  he  would  have — the  strongest  savage  has 
still — the  power  of  obtaining  a  wife,  or  wives,  superior 
in  beauty  and  in  household  skill,  which  involves 
superiority  of  intellect;  and  therefore  his  children 
would — some  of  them  at  least — be  superior  to  the 
average,  both  from  the  father^ s  and  the  mother^s 
capacities.  They  again  would  marry  select  wives ; 
and  their  children  again  would  do  the  same ;  till,  in  a 
very  few  generations,  a  family  would  have  established 
itself,  considerably  superior  to  the  rest  of  the  tribe  in 
body  and  mind,  and  become  assuredly  its  ruling  race. 

Again,  if  one  of  that  race  invented  a  new  weapon, 
a  new  mode  of  tillage,  or  aught  else  which  gave  him 
power^that  would  add  to  the  superiority  of  his  whole 


156  THE   ANCIEN   REGIME.  [lect. 

family.  For  the  invention  would  be  jealously  kept 
among  them  as  a  mystery,  a  hereditary  secret.  To 
this  simple  cause,  surely,  is  to  be  referred  the  system 
of  hereditary  caste  occupations,  whether  in. Egypt  or 
Hindoostan.  To  this,  too,  the  fact  that  alike. in  Greek 
and  in  Teutonic  legend  the  chief  so  often  appears,' not 
merely  as  the  best  warrior  and  best  minstrel,  but  as 
the  best  smith,  armourer,  and  handicraftsman  of .  his 
tribe.  If,  however,  the  inventor  happened  to  be  a 
low-born  genius,  its  advantages  would  still  accrue  to 
the  ruling  race.  For  nothing  could  be  more  natural 
or  more  easy — as  more  than  one  legend  intimates — 
than  that  the  king  should  extort  the  new  secret  from 
his  subject,  and  then  put  him  to  death  to  prevent  any 
further  publicity. 

Two  great  inventive  geniuses  we  may  see  dimly 
through  the  abysses  of  the  past,  both  of  whom  must 
have  become  in  their  time  great  chiefs,  founders  of 
mighty  aristocracies — it  may  be,  worshipped  after 
their  death  as  gods. 

The  first,  who  seems  to  have  existed  after  the  age 
in  which  the  black  race  colonised  Australia,  must  have 
been  surely  a  man  worthy  to  hold  rank  with  our 
Brindleys,  Watts,  and  Stepheusons.  For  he  invented 
(and  mind,  one  man  must  have  invented  the  thing  first, 
and  by  the  very  nature  of  it,  invented  it  all  at  once) 
an  instrument  so  singular,  unexpected,  unlike  any- 
thing to  be  seen  in  nature,  that  I  wonder  it  has  not 
been  called,  like  the  plough,  the  olive,  or  the  vine,  a 
gift  of  the  immortal  gods :  and  yet  an  instrument  so 
simple,  so  easy,  and  so  perfect,  that  it  spread  over  all 
races  in  Europe  and  America,  and  no  substitute  could 
be  found  for  it  till  the  latter  part  of  the  fifteenth 
century.     Yes,  a  great  genius  was  he,  and  the  conse- 


I.]  CASTE.  ^  /  157 

quent  founder  of  a  great  aristocracy  and  conquering// 
race^  wlio  first  invented  for  liimself  and  his  children 
after  him  a — bow  and  arrow.  ^  '-  //^y  ^ 

The  next — whether  before  or  after  the  /fi^t  in 
time,  it  suits  me  to  speak  of  him  in  second  place— ^wfe^^/ , 
the  man  who  was  the  potential  ancestor  of  the  whole 
Eitterschaft,  Chivalry,  and  knightly  caste  of  Europe ; 
the  man  who  first,  finding  a  foal  upon  the  steppe, 
deserted  by  its  dam,  brought  it  home,  and  reared 
it ;  and  then  bethought  him  of  the  happy  notion  of 
making  it  draw — presumably  by  its  tail — a  fashion 
which  endured  long  in  Ireland,  and  had  to  be  for- 
bidden by  law,  I  think  as  late  as  the  sixteenth 
century.  A  great  aristocrat  must  that  man  have 
become.  A  greater  still  he  who  first  substituted 
the  bit  for  the  halter.  A  greater  still  he  who  first 
thought  of  wheels.  A  greater  still  he  who  con- 
ceived the  yoke  and  pole  for  bearing  up  his  chariot ; 
for  that  same  yoke,  and  pole,  and  chariot^  became 
the  peculiar  instrument  of  conquerors  like  him  who 
mightily  oppressed  the  children  of  Israel,  for  he 
had  nine  hundred  chariots  of  iron.  Egyptians, 
Syrians,  Assyrians,  Greeks,  Komans — none  of  them 
improved  on  the  form  of  the  conquering  biga,  till 
it  was  given  up  by  a  race  who  preferred  a  pair  of 
shafts  to  their  carts,  and  who  had  learnt  to  ride 
instead  of  drive.  A  great  aristocrat,  again,  must  he 
have  been  among  those  latter  races  who  first  conceived 
the  notion  of  getting  on  his  horse's  back,  accommo- 
dating his  motions  to  the  beast^s,  and  becoming  a 
centaur,  half -man,  half-horse.  That  invention  must 
have  tended,  in  the  first  instance,  as  surely  toward 
democracy  as  did  the  invention  of  firearms.  A  tribe 
of  riders  must  have  been  always^  more  or  less^  equal 


158  THE   ANCIEN  EEGIME.  [lect. 

and  free.  Equal  because  a  man  on  a  horse  would  feel 
himself  a  man  indeed  ;  because  the  art  of  riding  called 
out  an  independence,  a  self-help,  a  skill,  a  conscious- 
ness of  power,  a  personal  pride  and  vanity,  which 
would  defy  slavery.  Free,  because  a  tribe  of  riders 
might  be  defeated,  exterminated,  but  never  enchained. 
They  could  never  become  glebce  adscripti,  bound  to 
the  soil,  as  long  as  they  could  take  horse  and  saddle, 
and  away.  History  gives  us  more  than  one  glimpse 
of  such  tribes — the  scourge  and  terror  of  the  non- 
riding  races  with  whom  they  came  in  contact.  Some, 
doubtless,  remember  how  in  the  wars  between  Alfred 
and  the  Danes,  ^^  the  army  ^^  (the  Scandinavian 
invaders)  again  and  again  horse  themselves,  steal  away 
by  night  from  the  Saxon  infantry,  and  ride  over  the 
land  (whether  in  England  or  in  France),  ^^  doing 
unspeakable  evil.^^  To  that  special  instinct  of  horse- 
manship, which  still  distinguishes  their  descendants, 
we  may  attribute  mainly  the  Scandinavian  settlement 
-of  the  north  and  east  of  England.  Some,  too,  may 
recollect  the  sketch  of  the  primaaval  Hun,  as  he  first 
-appeared  to  the  astonished  and  disgusted  old  Roman 
soldier  Ammianus  Marcellinus ;  the  visages  ^^  more  like 
cakes  than  faces ;^^  the  ''^figures  like  those  which  are 
hewn  out  with  an  axe  on  the  poles  at  bridge- ends ;  ^^ 
the  rat-skin  coats,  which  they  wore  till  they  rotted  ofE 
their  limbs  ;  their  steaks  of  meat  cooked  between  the 
saddle  and  the  thigh;  the  little  horses  on  which 
"they  eat  and  drink,  buy  and  sell,  and  sleep  lying 
forward  along  his  narrow  neck,  and  indulging  in  every 
variety  of  dreara."'^  And  over  and  above,  and  more 
important  politically,  the  common  councils  "held  on 
horseback,  under  the  authority  of  no  king,  but  content 
with  the  irregular  government  of  nobles,  under  whose 


I.]  CASTE.  159 

leading  tliey  force  their  way  tlirough.  all  obstacles/^ 
A  race — like  those  Cossacks  who  are  probably  their 
lineal  descendants — to  be  feared,  to  be  hired,  to  be 
petted,  but  not  to  be  conquered. 

Instances  nearer  home  of  free  equestrian  races  we 
have  in  our  own  English  borderers,  among  whom  (as 
Mr.  Froude  says)  the  farmers  and  their  farm-servants 
had  but  to  snatch  their  arms  and  spring  into  their 
saddles  and  they  became  at  once  the  Northern  Horse^ 
famed  as  the  finest  light  cavalry  in  the  world.  And 
equal  to  them — superior  even,  if  we  recollect  that  they 
preserved  their  country's  freedom  for  centuries  against 
the  superior  force  of  England — were  those  troops  of 
Scots  who,  century  after  century,  swept  across  the 
border  on  their  little  garrons,  their  bag  of  oatmeal 
hanging  by  the  saddle,  with  the  iron  griddle  whereon 
to  bake  it ;  careless  of  weather  and  of  danger ;  men 
too  swift  to  be  exterminated,  too  independent  to  be 
enslaved. 

But  if  horsemanship  had,  in  these  cases,  a  levelling 
tendency  it  would  have  the  very  opposite  when  a 
riding  tribe  conquered  a  non-riding  one.  The 
conquerors  would,  as  much  as  possible,  keep  the  art 
and  mystery  of  horsemanship  hereditary  among  them- 
selves, and  become  a  Eitterschaft  or  chivalrous  caste. 
And  they  would  be  able  to  do  so :  because  the 
conquered  race  would  not  care  or  dare  to  learn  the 
new  and  dangerous  art.  There  are  persons,  even  in 
England,  who  can  never  learn  to  ride.  There 
are  whole  populations  in  Europe,  even  now,  when 
races  have  become  almost  indistinguishably  mixed, 
who  seem  imable  to  learn.  And  this  must  have 
been  still  more  the  case  when  the  races  were  more 
strongly   separated    in  blood   and   habits.       So   the 


160  THE   AKCIEN  ElgGIME.  [lect, 

Teutonic  cHef,  with  liis  gesitlia^  comites^  or  select 
band  of  knights^  who  had  received  from  him,  as 
Tacitus  has  it,  the  war-horse  and  the  lance,  established 
himself  as  the  natural  ruler — and  oppressor — of  the 
non-riding  populations ;  first  over  the  aborigines  of 
Germany  proper,  tribes  who  seem  to  have  been 
enslaved,  and  their  names  lost,  before  the  time  of 
Tacitus;  and  then  over  the  non-riding  Romans  and 
Gauls  to  the  South  and  West,  and  the  Wendish  and 
Sclavonic  tribes  to  the  East.  Very  few  in  numbers,^ 
but  mighty  in  their  unequalled  capacity  of  body  and 
mind,  and  in  their  terrible  horsemanship,  the  Teutonic 
Eitterschaft  literally  rode  roughshod  over  the  old 
world ;  never  checked,  but  when  they  came  in  contact 
with  the  free-riding  hordes  of  the  Eastern  steppes  ; 
and  so  established  an  equestrian  caste,  of  which  the 
liT7Tel<^  of  Athens  and  the  Equites  of  Rome  had  been 
only  hints  ending  in  failure  and  absorption. 

Of  that  equestrian  caste  the  symbol  was  the  horse^ 
The  favourite,  and  therefore  the  chosen  sacrifice  of 
Odin,  their  ancestor  and  God,  the  horse^s  flesh  was 
eaten  at  the  sacrificial  meal ;  the  horse^s  head,  hung 
on  the  ash  in  Odin^s  wood,  gave  forth  oracular 
responses.  As  Christianity  came  in,  and  the  eating 
of  horse-flesh  was  forbidden  as  impiety  by  the  Church, 
while  his  oracles  dwindled  down  to  such  as  that  which 
Falada^s  dead  head  gives  to  the  goose-girl  in  the 
German  tale,  the  magic  power  of  the  horse  figured 
only  in  ballads  and  legends  :  but  his  real  power 
remained. 

The  art  of  riding  became  an  hereditary  and  ex^ 
elusive  science — at  last  a  pedantry,  hampered  by  absurd 
etiquettes,  and  worse  than  useless  traditions ;  but  the 
power  and  right  to  ride  remained  on  the  whole  the 


I.]  CASTE.  161 

mark  of  tlie  dominant  caste.     Terribly  did  tliey  often 

abuse  that  special  power.     The  faculty  of  making  a 

horse  carry  him  no  more  makes  a  man  a  good  man, 

than  the  faculties  of  making  money,  making  speeches, 

making  books,  or  making  a  noise  about  public  abuses. 

And  of  all  ruffians,  the  worst,  if  history  is  to  be  trusted, 

is  the  ruffian  on  a  horse ;  to  whose  brutality  of  mind 

is  superadded  the  brute  power  of  his  beast.     A  ruffian 

on  a  horse — what  is  there  that  he  will  not  ride  over, 

and  ride   on,  careless  and  proud  of  his  own  shame  ? 

When  the  ancient  chivalry  of   France  descended  to 

that    level,    or   rather   delegated    their   functions    to 

mercenaries  of  that  level — when  the  knightly  hosts 

who  fought  before  Jerusalem  allowed  themselves  to 

be  superseded  by  the  dragoons   and  dragonnades  of 

Louis   XIV. — then   the    end   of   the   French  chivalry 

was  at  hand,  and  came.      But  centuries  before  that 

shameful  fall  there  had  come  in  with  Christianity  the 

new  thought,  that   domination  meant  responsibility; 

that  responsibility  demanded  virtue.    The  words  which 

denoted  rank,   came  to    denote   likewise   high   moral 

excellencies.     The  nobilis,  or  man   who  was  known, 

and  therefore  subject  to  public  opinion,  was  bound  to 

behave   nobly.       The    gentleman — gentile-man — who 

respected  his   own  gens,  or  family  and  pedigree,  was 

bound  to  be  gentle.     The  courtier,  who  had  picked 

up  at  court  some  touch  of   Eoman  civilisation  from 

Boman  ecclesiastics,  was  bound  to  be  courteous.     He 

who  held  an  ^^  honour  ^^  or  ^^  edel  ^^  of  land  was  bound 

to  be  honourable ;  and   he  who  held   a  ^^  weorthig,^^ 

or  worthy,  thereof,  was  bound  himself  to  be  worthy. 

In  like  wise,  he  who  had  the  right  to  ride  a  horse, 

was  expected  to  be  chivalrous  in  all  matters  befitting 

the   hereditary  ruler,  who  owed   a  sacred  debt  to  a 

VOL.  I. — H.  E.  M 


162  THE  ANCIEN   K^EGIME.  [lect. 

long  line  of  forefathers,  as  well  as  to  tlie  state  in 
wliicli  lie  dwelt;  all  dignity,  courtesy,  purity,  self- 
restraint,  devotion — sucli  as  they  were  understood  in 
those  rough  days— centred  themselves,  round  the  idea 
of  the  rider  as  the  attributes  of  the  man  whose  sup- 
posed duty,  as  well  as  his  supposed  right,  was  to 
govern  his  fellow-men,  by  example,  as  well  as  by  law  and 
force  ; — attributes  which  gathered  themselves  up  into 
that  one  word — Chivalry  :  an  idea,  which,  perfect  or 
imperfect,  God  forbid  that  mankind  should  evev  forget, 
till  it  has  become  the  possession — as  it  is  the  God- 
given  right — of  the  poorest  slave  that  ever  trudged 
on  foot ;  and  every  collier-lad  shall  have  become — as 
some  of  those  Barnsley  men  proved  but  the  other  day 
they  had  become  already  : 

A  very  gentle  perfect  knight. 

Very  unfaithful  was  chivalry  to  its  ideal — as  all  men 
are  to  all  ideals.  But  bear  in  mind,  that  if  the  horse 
was  the  symbol  of  the  ruling  caste,  it  was  not  at  first 
its  only  strength.  Unless  that  caste  had  had  at  first 
spiritual,  as  well  as  physical  force  on  its  side,  it  would 
have  been  soon  destroyed — nay,  it  would  have  des- 
troyed itself — by  internecine  civil  war.  And  we  must 
believe  that  those  Franks,  Goths,  Lombards,  and 
Burgunds,  who  in  the  early  Middle  Age  leaped  on  the 
backs  (to  use  Mr.  Carlyle^s  expression)  of  the  Roman 
nations,  were  actually,  in  all  senses  of  the  word,  better 
men  than  those  whom  they  conquered.  We  must 
believe  it  from  reason ;  for  if  not,  how  could  they, 
numerically  few,  have  held  for  a  year,  much  more  for 
centuries,  against  millions,  their  dangerous  elevation  ? 
We  must  believe  it,  unless  we  take  Tacitus^s  ^^Ger- 
mania,^^  which  I  absolutely  refuse  to  do,  for  a  romance 


I.]  CASTE.  163: 

We  must  believe  that  thej  were  better  tlian  tlie 
Eomanised  nations  whom  they  conquered,  because  tW 
writers  of  those  nations,  Augustine,  Salvian,  and 
Sidonius  ApoUinaris,  for  example,  say  that  they 
were  such,  and  give  proof  thereof.  Not  good  men 
according  to  our  higher  standard— far  from  it ;, 
though  Sidonius^s  picture  of  Theodoric,  the  East  Goth,, 
in  his  palace  of  Narbonne,  is  the  picture  of  an 
eminently  good  and  wise  ruler.  But  not  good,  I  say,, 
as  a  rule — the  Pranks,  alas  !  often  very  bad  men  :; 
but  still  better,  wiser,  abler,  than  those  whom  they 
ruled.  We  must  believe,  too,  that  they  were  better,, 
in  every  sense  of  the  word,  than  , those  tribes  on  their 
eastern  frontier,  whom  they  conquered  in  after 
centuries,  unless  we  discredit  (which  we  have  no- 
reason  to  do)  the  accounts  which  the  Roman  and 
Greek  writers  give  of  the  horrible  savagery  of  those 
tribes. 

So  it  was  in  later  centuries.  One  cannot  read 
fairly  the  history  of  the  Middle  Ages  without  seeing 
that  the  robber  knight  of  Germany  or  of  Prance,  who 
figures  so  much  in  modern  novels,  must  have  been 
the  exception,  and  not  the  rule :  that  an  aristo- 
cracy which  lived  by  the  saddle  would  have  as  little 
chance  of  perpetuating  itself,  as  a  priesthood  composed, 
of  hypocrites  and  profligates ;  that  the  mediaGval 
Nobility  has  been  as  much  slandered  as  the  mediaeval 
Church;  and  the  exceptions  taken — as  more  salient 
and  exciting — for  the  average  :  that  side  by  side  with 
ruffians  like  Gaston  de  Poix  hundreds  of  honest 
gentlemen  were  trying  to  do  their  duty  to  the  best 
of  their  light,  and  were  raising,  and  not  depressing, 
the  masses  below  them — one  very  important  item  in 
that  duty  being,  the  doing  the  whole  fighting  of  the- 

M  2 


164  THE  ANCIEN   EJgGIME.  [lect. 

country  at  their  own  expense^  instead  of  leaving  it  to 
a  standing  army  of  mercenaries,  at  tlie  beck  and  call 
of  a  despot ;  and  that,  as  M.  de  Tocqueville  says  : 
^'  In  feudal  times,  the  Nobility  were  regarded  pretty 
much  as  the  government  is  regarded  in  our  own ;  the 
burdens  they  imposed  were  endured  in  consequence  of 
the  security  they  afforded.  The  nobles  had  many 
irksome  privileges;  they  possessed  many  onerous 
rights  :  but  they  maintained  public  order,  they  ad- 
ministered justice,  they  caused  the  law  to  be  executed, 
they  came  to  the  relief  of  the  weak,  they  conducted 
the  business  of  the  community.  In  proportion  as  they 
ceased  to  do  these  things,  the  burden  of  their  privileges 
appeared  more  oppressive,  and  their  existence  became 
an  anomaly  in  proportion  as  they  ceased  to  do  these 
things.^^  And  the  Ancien  Regime  may  be  defined  as 
the  period  in  which  they  ceased  to  do  these  things — 
in  which  they  began  to  play  the  idlers,  and  expected 
to  take  their  old  wages  without  doing  their  old  work. 

But  in  any  case,  government  by  a  ruling  caste, 
whether  of  the  patriarchal  or  of  the  feudal  kind,  is 
no  ideal  or  permanent  state  of  society.  So  far  from 
it,  it  is  but  the  first  or  second  step  out  of  primaeval 
savagery.  For  the  more  a  ruling  race  becomes  con- 
scious of  its  own  duty,  and  not  merely  of  its  own 
power — the  more  it  learns  to  regard  its  peculiar  gifts 
as  entrusted  to  it  for  the  good  of  men — so  much  the 
more  earnestly  will  it  labour  to  raise  the  masses  below 
to  its  own  level,  by  imparting  to  them  its  own  light ; 
and  so  will  it  continually  tend  to  abolish  itself,  by 
producing  a  general  equality,  moral  and  intellectual ; 
and  fulfil  that  law  of  self-sacrifice  which  is  the  begin- 
ning and  the  end  of  all  virtue. 

A  race  of  noblest  men  and  women,  trying  to  make 


I.]  CASTE.  165 

all  below  them  as  noble  as  themselves — that  is  at  least 
a  fair  ideal^  tending  toward,  though  it  has  not  reached, 
the  highest  ideal  of  all. 

But  suppose  that  the  very  opposite  tendency — 
inherent  in  the  heart  of  every  child  of  man — should 
conquer.  Suppose  the  ruling  caste  no  longer  the 
physical,  intellectual,  and  moral  superiors  of  the  mass, 
but  their  equals.  Suppose  them — shameful,  but  not 
without  example — actually  sunk  to  be  their  inferiors. 
And  that  such  a  fall  did  come — nay,  that  it  must  have 
come — is  matter  of  history.  And  its  cause,  like  all 
social  causes,  was  not  a  political  nor  a  physical,  but  a 
moral  cause.  The  profligacy  of  the  French  and  Italian 
aristocracies,  in  the  sixteenth  century,  avenged  itself 
on  them  by  a  curse  (derived  from  the  newly-discovered 
America)  from  which  they  never  recovered.  The 
Spanish  aristocracy  suffered,  I  doubt  not  very  severely. 
The  English  and  German,  owing  to  the  superior  home- 
liness and  purity  of  ruling  their  lives,  hardly  at  all. 
But  the  continental  caste^  instead  of  recruiting  their 
tainted  blood  by  healthy  blood  from  below^  did  all, 
under  pretence  of  keeping  it  pure,  to  keep  it  tainted 
by  continual  intermarriage ;  and  paid,  in  increasing 
weakness  of  body  and  mind,  the  penalty  of  their 
exclusive  pride.  It  is  impossible  for  anyone  who  reads 
the  French  memoirs  of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth 
centuries,  not  to  perceive,  if  he  be  wise,  that  the 
aristocracy  therein  depicted  was  ripe  for  ruin — ^yea, 
already  ruined — under  any  form  of  government  what- 
soever, independent  of  all  political  changes.  Indeed, 
many  of  the  political  changes  were  not  the  causes  but 
the  effects  of  the  demoralisation  of  the  noblesse. 
Historians  will  tell  you  how,  as  early  as  the  beginning 
of   the  seventeenth  century,   Henry   IV.  complained 


166  THE  ANCIEN  EEGIME.  [lect. 

that  the  nobles  were  quitting  their  country  districts  ; 
how  succeeding  kings  and  statesmen^  notably  Eichelieu 
^nd  Louis  XIV._,  tempted  the  noblesse  up  to  Paris, 
that  they  might  become  mere  courtiers,  instead  of 
powerful  country  gentlemen ;  how  those  who  remained 
behind  were  only  the  poor  hohereaiix,  little  hobby- 
la  wks  among  the  gentry,  who  considered  it  degra- 
dation to  help  in  governing  the  parish,  as  their  fore- 
fathers had  governed  it,  and  lived  shabbily  in  their 
chateaux,  grinding  the  last  farthing  out  of  their 
tenants,  that  they  might  spend  it  in  town  during  the 
winter.  No  wonder  that  with  such  an  aristocracy, 
who  had  renounced  that  very  duty  of  governing  the 
country,  for  which  alone  they  and  their  forefathers 
had  existed,  there  arose  government  by  intendants  and 
sub- delegates,  and  all  the  other  evils  of  administrative 
centralisation,  which  M.  de  Tocqueville  anatomises  and 
deplores.  But  what  was  the  cause  of  the  curse  ? 
Their  moral  degradation.  What  drew  them  up  to 
Paris  save  vanity  and  profligacy  ?  What  kept  them 
from  intermarrying  with  the  middle  class  save  pride  ? 
What  made  them  give  up  the  ofiice  of  governors  save 
idleness  ?  And  if  vanity,  profligacy,  pride,  and  idle- 
ness be  not  injustices  and  moral  vices,  what  are  ? 

The  race  of  heroic  knights  and  nobles  who  fought 
under  the  walls  of  Jerusalem — who  wrestled,  and  not 
in  vain,  for  centuries  with  the  equally  heroic  English, 
in  defence  of  their  native  soil — who  had  set  to  all 
Europe  the  example  of  all  knightly  virtues,  had  rotted 
down  to  this ;  their  only  virtue  left,  as  Mr.  Carlyle  says, 
being — a  perfect  readiness  to  fight  duels. 

Every  Intendant,  chosen  by  the  Comptroller- 
Oeneral  out  of  the  lower-born  members  of  the  Council 
•of  State ;  a  needy  young  plebeian  with  his  fortune  to 


J^-I 


'I.]  •  CASTE.  //  ^  ^    /|-6j^ 

make^  and  a  stranger  to  tlie  province^  wsi^}a  spite  of 
his    greedy    ambition,,    chicane,    arbitrary  ,  tyranny, 'a  ^  , 
better   man — abler,    more    energetic^    and  '*  ciften,,  to 
judge  from  the  pages  of  De  Tocqueville,  with  f ar  mbi*^  .•  v 
sympathy  and  mercy  for  the  wretched  peasantry — than   ^ 
was  the  count  or  marquis  in  the  chateau  above,  who 
looked  down  on  him  as  a  roturier ;  and  let  him  never- 
theless become  first  his  deputy,  and  then  his  master. 

Understand  me — I  am  not  speaking  against  the 
hereditary  principle  of  the  Ancien  Regime,  but  against 
its  caste  principle  —  two  widely  different  elements^ 
continually  confounded  nowadays. 

The  hereditary  principle  is  good,  because  it  is 
founded  on  fact  and  nature.  If  men^s  minds  come 
into  the  world  blank  sheets  of  paper — which  I  much 
doubt — every  other  part  and  faculty  of  them  comes  in 
stamped  with  hereditary  tendencies  and  peculiarities. 
There  are  such  things  as  transmitted  capabilities  for 
good  and  for  evil ;  and  as  surely  as  the  offspring  of  a 
good  horse  or  dog  is  likely  to  be  good,  so  is  the 
offspring  of  a  good  man,  and  still  more  of  a  good 
woman.  If  the  parents  have  any  special  ability,  their 
children  will  probably  inherit  it,  at  least  in  part ;  and 
over  and  above,  will  have  it  developed  in  them  by  an 
education  worthy  of  their  parents  and  themselves.  If 
man  were — what  he  is  not — a  healthy  and  normal 
species,  a  permanent  hereditary  caste  might  go  on 
intermarrying,  and  so  perpetuate  itself.  But  the 
same  moral  reason  which  would  make  such  a  caste 
dangerous — indeed,  fatal  to  the  liberty  and  develop- 
ment of  mankind,  makes  it  happily  impossible.  Crimes 
and  follies  are  certain,  after  a  few  generations,  to 
weaken  the  powers  of  any  human  caste ;  and  unless  it 
supplements  its  own  weakness  by  mingling  again  with 


168  THE   ANCIEN   EEGIME.  [t^ect. 

the  common  stock  of  humanity,  it  must  sink  under 
that  weakness,  as  the  ancient  noblesse  sank  by  its 
own  vice.  Of  course  there  were  exceptions.  The 
French  Eevolution  brought  those  exceptions  out  into 
strong  light;  and  like  every  day  of  judgment,  divided 
between  the  good  and  the  evil.  But  it  hes  not  in 
exceptions  to  save  a  caste,  or  an  institution  ;  and  a 
few  Richelieus,  Liancourts^  Eochefoucaulds,  Noailles^ 
Lafayettes  were  but  the  storks  among  the  cranes 
involved  in  the  wholesale  doom  due  not  to  each  indi- 
vidual, but  to  a  system  and  a  class. 

Profligacy,  pride,  idleness — these  are  the  vices 
which  we  have  to  lay  to  the  charge  of  the  Teutonic 
NobiHty  of  the  Ancien  Eegime  in  France  especially ; 
and  (though  in  a  less  degree  perhaps)  over  the  whole 
continent  of  Europe.  But  below  them,  and  perhaps 
the  cause  of  them  all^  lay  another  and  deeper  vice — 
godlessness — atheism. 

I  do  not  mean  merely  want  of  religion,  doctrinal 
unbelief.  I  mean  want  of  belief  in  duty,  in  responsi- 
bility. Want  of  belief  that  there  was  a  living  God 
governing  the  universe,  who  had  set  them  their  work, 
and  would  judge  them  according  to  their  work.  And 
therefore,  want  of  belief,  yea,  utter  unconsciousness, 
that  they  were  set  in  their  places  to  make  the  masses 
below  them  better  men ;  to  impart  to  them  their 
own  civilisation,  to  raise  them  to  their  own  level. 
They  would  have  shrunk  from  that  which  I  just  now 
defined  as  the  true  duty  of  an  aristocracy,  just  because 
it  would  have  seemed  to  them  madness  to  abolish 
themselves.  But  the  process  of  abolition  went  on^ 
nevertheless,  only  now  from  without  instead  of  from 
within.  So  it  must  always  be,  in  such  a  case.  If  a 
ruling  class  will  not  try  to  raise  the  masses  to  their  own 


I.]  CASTE.  169 

level,  the  masses  will  try  to  drag  tliem  down  to  tlieirs. 
That  sense  of  justice  whicli  allowed  privileges^  when 
they  were  as  strictly  official  privileges  as  the  salary  of 
a  judge,  or  the  immunity  of  a  member  of  the  House 
of  Commons  ;  when  they  were  earned,  as  in  the 
Middle  Age,  by  severe  education,  earnest  labour,  and 
life  and  death  responsibility  in  peace  and  war,  will 
demand  the  abolition  of  those  privileges,  when  no 
work  is  done  in  return  for  them,  with  a  voice  which 
must  be  heard,  for  it  is  the  voice  of  truth  and  justice. 

But  with  that  righteous  voice  will  mingle  another, 
most  wicked,  and  yet,  alas !  most  flattering  to  poor 
hum=anity — the  voice  of  envy,  simple  and  undisguised  ; 
of  envy,  which  moralists  hold  to  be  one  of  the  basest 
of  human  passions  ;  which  can  never  be  justified, 
however  hateful  or  unworthy  be  the  envied  man. 
And  when  a  whole  people,  or  even  a  majority  thereof, 
shall  be  possessed  by  that,  what  is  there  that  they  will 
not  do  ? 

Some  are  surprised  and  puzzled  when  they  find,  in 
the  French  Eevolution  of  1793,  the  noblest  and  the 
foulest  characters  labouring  in  concert,  and  side  by 
side — often,  too,  paradoxical  as  it  may  seem,  united 
in  the  same  personage.  The  explanation  is  simple. 
Justice  inspired  the  one;  the  other  was  the  child  of 
simple  envy.  But  this  passion  of  envy,  if  it  becomes 
permanent  and  popular,  may  avenge  itself,  like  all 
other  sins.  A  nation  may  say  to  itself,  ^'  Provided 
we  have  no  superiors  to  fall  our  pride,  we  are  content. 
Liberty  is  a  slight  matter,  provided  we  have  equality. 
Let  us  be  slaves,  provided  we  are  all  slaves  alike.^^ 
It  may  destroy  every  standard  of  humanity  above  its 
own  mean  average ;  it  may  forget  that  the  old  ruling 
class,  in  spite  of   all  its  defects  and  crimes,  did  at 


170  THE   ANCIEN   REGIME.  [lect. 

least  pretend  to  represent  sometliing  liiglier  than 
nian^s  necessary  wants^  plus  the  greed  of  amassing 
money ;  never  meeting  (at  least  in  the  country  districts) 
any  one  wiser  or  more  refined  than  an  official  or  a 
priest  drawn  from  the  peasant  class,  it  may  lose  the 
belief  that  any  standard  higher  than  that  is  needed  ; 
and,  all  but  forgetting  the  very  existence  of  civilisa- 
tion, sink  contented  into  a  dead  level  of  intellectual 
mediocrity  and  moral  barbarism,  crying,  ^^  Let  us  eat 
and  drink,  for  to-morrow  we  die/^ 

A  nation  in  such  a  temper  will  surely  be  taken  at 
its  word.  Where  the  carcase  is,  there  the  eagles  will 
be  gathered  together ;  and  there  will  not  be  wanting 
to  such  nations — as  there  were  not  wanting  in  old 
Greece  and  Rome — despots  who  will  give  them  all 
they  want,  and  more,  and  say  to  them  :  ^'  Yes,  you 
shall  eat  and  drink ;  and  yet  you  shall  not  die.  For  I, 
while  I  take  care  of  your  mortal  bodies,  will  see  that 
care  is  taken  of  your  immortal  souls/^ 

For  there  are  those  who  have  discovered,  with  the 
kings  of  the  Holy  Alliance,  that  infidelity  and  scep- 
ticism are  political  mistakes,  not  so  much  because 
they  promote  vice,  as  because  they  promote  (or  are 
supposed  to  promote)  free  thought;  who  see  that 
religion  (no  matter  of  what  quality)  is  a  most  valuable 
assistant  to  the  duties  of  a  minister  of  police.  They 
will  quote  in  their  own  behalf  Montesquieu's  opinion 
that  religion  is  a  column  necessary  to  sustain  the  social 
edifice ;  they  will  quote,  too,  that  sound  and  true  say- 
ing of  De  Tocqueville^s  :  *  ^^  If  the  first  American  who 
might  be  met,  either  in  his  own  country,  or  abroad, 
were  to  be  stopped  and  asked  whether  he  considered 

*  Mr.  H.  Reeve's  translation  of  De  Tocqneville's  "France  before 
the  Revolution  of  1789,"  p.  280. 


I.]  CASTE.  171 

religion  useful  to  the  stability  of  tlie  laws  and  the 
good  order  of  society,  he  would  answer,  without  hesi- 
tation, that  no  civilised  society,  but  more  especially 
none  in  a  state  of  freedom,  can  exist  without  religion. 
Eespect  for  religion  is,  in  his  eyes,  the  greatest 
guarantee  of  the  stability  of  the  State,  and  of  the 
safety  of  the  community.  Those  who  are  ignorant  of 
the  science  of  government,  knovv^  that  fact  at  least.^^ 

M.  de  Tocqueville,  when  he  wrote  these  words, 
was  lamenting  that  in  France,  "freedom  was  for- 
saken ;  '^  '^  si  thing  for  which  it  is  said  that  no  one 
any  longer  cares  in  Prance.^ ^  He  did  not,  it  seems  to 
me,  perceive  that,  as  in  America  the  best  guarantee  of 
freedom  is  the  reverence  for  a  religion  or  religions, 
which  are  free  themselves,  and  which  teach  men  to 
be  free ;  so  in  other  countries  the  best  guarantee  of 
slavery  is,  reverence  for  religions  which  are  not  free, 
and  which  teach  men  to  be  slaves. 

But  what  M.  de  Tocqueville  did  not  see,  there 
are  others  who  will  see ;  who  will  say  :  "  If  religion 
be  the  pillar  of  political  and  social  order,  there  is  an 
order  which  is  best  supported  by  a  religion  which  is 
adverse  to  free  thought,  free  speech,  free  conscience, 
free  communion  between  man  and  God.  The  more 
enervating  the  superstition,  the  more  exacting  and 
tyrannous  its  priesthood,  the  more  it  will  do  our  work, 
if  we  help  it  to  do  its  own.  If  it  permit  us  to  enslave 
the  body,  we  will  permit  it  to  enslave  the  soul.''^ 

And  so  may  be  inaugurated  a  period  of  that 
organised  anarchy  of  which  the  poet  says  : 

It  is  not  life,  but  death,  when  nothing  stirs. 


LECTURE   II. 


CENTRALISATION. 


The  degradation  of  the  European  nobility  caused,  of 
course,  the  increase  of  the  kingly  power,  and  opened 
the  way  to  central  despotisms.  The  bourgeoisie,  the 
commercial  middle  class,  whatever  were  its  virtues, 
its  value,  its  real  courage,  were  never  able  to  stand 
alone  against  the  kings.  Their  capital,  being  in- 
vested in  trade,  was  necessarily  subject  to  such  sudden 
dangers  from  war,  political  change,  bad  seasons,  and 
so  forth,  that  its  holders,  however  individually  brave, 
were  timid  as  a  class.  They  could  never  hold  out  on 
strike  against  the  governments,  and  had  to  submit 
to  the  powers  that  were,  whatever  they  were,  under 
penalty  of  ruin. 

But  on  the  Continent,  and  especially  in  France  and 
Germany,  unable  to  strengthen  itself  by  intermarriage 
with  the  noblesse,  they  retained  that  timidity  which  is 
the  fruit  of  the  insecurity  of  trade  ;  and  had  to  submit 
to  a  more  and  more  centralised  despotism,  and  grow 
np  as  they  could,  in  the  face  of  exasperating  hind- 
rances to  wealth,  to  education,  to  the  possession,  in 
many  parts  of  France,  of  large  landed  estates ;  leaving 


LECT.  II.]  CENTRALISATION.  173 

tlie  noblesse  to  decay  in  isolated  uselessness  and  weak- 
ness, and  in  many  cases  debt  and  poverty. 

The  system — or  rather  anarchy — according  to  which 
France  was  governed  during  this  transitional  period, 
may  be  read  in  that  work  of  M.  de  Tocqueville's 
which  I  have  already  quoted,  and  which  is  accessible 
to  all  classes,  through  Mr.  H.  Reeve^s  excellent  trans- 
lation. Every  student  of  history  is,  of  course,  well 
acquainted  with  that  book.  But  as  there  is  reason  to 
fear,  from  language  which  is  becoming  once  more  too 
common,  both  in  speech  and  writing,  that  the  general 
public  either  do  not  know  it,  or  have  not  understood 
it,  I  shall  take  the  liberty  of  quoting  from  it  some- 
what largely.  I  am  justified  in  so  doing  by  the  fact 
that  M.  de  Tocqueville^s  book  is  founded  on  researches 
into  the  French  Archives,  which  have  been  made  (as 
far  as  I  am  aware)  only  by  him;  and  contains  in- 
numerable significant  facts,  which  are  to  be  found  (as 
far  as  I  am  aware)  in  no  other  accessible  work. 

The  French  people — says  M.  de  Tocqueville — made, 
in  1 789,  the  greatest  effort  which  was  ever  made  by 
any  nation  to  cut,  so  to  speak,  their  destiny  in  halves, 
and  to  separate  by  an  abyss  that  which  they  had  here- 
tofore been,  from  that  which  they  sought  to  become 
hereafter.  But  he  had  long  thought  that  they  had 
succeeded  in  this  singular  attempt  much  less  than  was 
supposed  abroad ;  and  less  than  they  had  at  first 
supposed  themselves.  He  was  convinced  that  they 
had  unconsciously  retained,  from  the  former  state  of 
society,  most  of  the  sentiments,  the  habits,  and  even 
the  opinions,  by  means  of  which  they  had  effected  the 
destruction  of  that  state  of  things  ;  and  that,  without 
intending  it,  they  had  used  its  remains  to  rebuild  the 
edifice  of  modern  society.     This  is  his  thesis,  and  this 


174  THE   ANCIEN   REGIME.  [lect. 

he  proves^  it  seems  to  me^  incontestably  by  docu- 
mentary evidence.  Not  only  does  lie  find  habits  which 
we  suppose — or  supposed  till  lately — to  have  died  with 
the  eighteenth  century _,  still  living  and  workings  at 
least  in  France^  in  the  nineteenth,  but  the  new  opinions 
which  we  look  on  usually  as  the  special  children  of 
the  nineteenth  century,  he  shows  to  have  been  born 
in  the  eighteenth.  Prance,  he  considers,  is  still  at 
heart  what  the  Ancien  Regime  made  her. 

He  shows  that  the  hatred  of  the  ruling  caste,  the 
intense  determination  to  gain  and  keep  equality,  even 
at  the  expense  of  liberty,  had  been  long  growing  up, 
under  those  influences  of  which  I  spoke  in  my  first 
lecture. 

He  shows,  moreover,  that  the  acquiescence  in  a 
centralised  administration;  the  expectation  that  the 
government  should  do  everything  for  the  people,  and 
nothing  for  themselves ;  the  consequent  loss  of  local 
liberties,  local  peculiarities ;  the  helplessness  of  the 
towns  and  the  parishes  :  and  all  which  issued  in  making 
Paris  Prance,  and  subjecting  the  whole  of  a  vast 
country  to  the  arbitrary  dictates  of  a  knot  of  despots 
in  the  capital,  was  not  the  fruit  of  the  Eevolution,  but 
of  the  Ancien  Eegime  which  preceded  it ;  and  that 
Robespierre  and  his  ^^  Comite  de  Salut  Public,'^  and 
commissioners  sent  forth  to  the  four  winds  of  heaven 
in  bonnet  rouge  and  carmagnole  complete,  to  build  up 
and  pull  down,  according  to  their  wicked  will,  were 
only  handling,  somewhat  more  roughly,  the  same  wires 
which  had  been  handled  for  several  generations  by  the 
Comptroller- General  and  Council  of  State,  with  their 
provincial  intendants. 

"  Do  you  know,^^  said  Law  to  the  Marquis 
d^Argenson,  ^^  that  this  kingdom  of  Prance  is  governed 


II.]  CENTRALISATION.  175 

by  thirty  intendants  ?  You  have  neither  parliament^ 
nor  estates^  nor  governors.  It  is  upon  thirty  masters 
of  request,  despatched  into  the  provinces,  that  their 
evil  or  their  good,  their  fertility  or  their  sterility, 
entirely  depend.''^ 

To  do  everything  for  the  people,  and  let  them  do 
nothing  for  themselves — this  was  the  Ancien  Regime. 
To  be  more  wise  and  more  loving  than  Almighty  God, 
who  certainly  does  not  do  everything  for  the  sons  of 
men,  but  forces  them  to  labour  for  themselves  by 
bitter  need,  and  after  a  most  Spartan  mode  of 
education;  who  allows  them  to  burn  their  hands  as 
often  as  they  are  foolish  enough  to  put  them  into  the 
fire ;  and  to  be  filled  with  the  fruits  of  their  own  folly, 
even  though  the  folly  be  one  of  necessary  ignorance ; 
treating  them  with  that  seeming  neglect  which  is 
after  all  the  most  provident  care,  because  by  it  alone 
can  men  be  trained  to  experience,  self-help,  science, 
true  humanity;  and  so  become  not  tolerably  harmless 
dolls,  but  men  and  women  worthy  of  the  name ;  with 

The  reason  firm,  the  temperate  will, 
Endurance,  foresight,  strength,  and  skill ; 
The  perfect  spirit,  nobly  planned 
To  cheer,  to  counsel,  and  command. 

Such  seems  to  be  the  education  and  government 
appointed  for  man  by  the  voluntatem  Dei  in  rebus 
revelatum,  and  the  education,  therefore,  which  the 
man  of  science  will  accept  and  carry  out.  But  the 
men  of  the  Ancien  Regime — in  as  far  as  it  was  a 
regime  at  all — tried  to  be  wiser  than  the  Almighty. 
Why  not  ?  They  were  not  the  first,  nor  will  be  the 
last,  by  many  who  have  made  the  same  attempt. 
So  this  Council  of  State  settled  arbitrarily,  not 
only    taxes,    and    militia,    and    roads,   but   anything 


176  THE   ANCIEN   RJEGIME.  [lect. 

and  everything.  Its  members  meddled^  witli  their 
whole  hearts  and  minds.  They  tried  to  teach  agricul- 
ture by  schools  and  pamphlets  and  prizes ;  they  sent 
out  plans  for  every  public  work.  A  town  could  not 
establish  an  octroi,  levy  a  rate,  mortgage,  sell,  sue, 
farm,  or  administer  their  property,  without  an  order 
in  council.  The  Government  ordered  public  rejoicings, 
saw  to  the  firing  of  salutes,  and  illuminating  of  houses 
— in  one  case  mentioned  by  M.  de  Tocqueville,  they 
fined  a  member  of  the  burgher  guard  for  absenting 
himself  from  a  Te  Deum.  All  self-government  was 
^one.  A  country  parish  was,  says  Turgot,  nothing 
but  ^^an  assemblage  of  cabins,  and  of  inhabitants  as 
passive  as  the  cabins  they  dwelt  in.  Without  an 
order  of  council,  the  parish  could  not  mend  the  steeple 
iifter  a  storm,  or  repair  the  parsonage  gable.  If  they 
grumbled  at  the  intendant,  he  threw  some  of  the  chief 
persons  into  prison,  and  made  the  parish  pay  the 
expenses  of  the  horse  patrol,  which  formed  the 
arbitrary  police  of  France.  Everywhere  was  meddling. 
There  were  reports  on  statistics — circumstantial,  in- 
accurate, and  useless — as  statistics  are  too  often  wont 
to  be.  Sometimes,  when  the  people  were  starving, 
the  Government  sent  down  charitable  donations  to 
certain  parishes,  on  condition  that  the  inhabitants 
should  raise  a  sum  on  their  part.  When  the  sum 
offered  was  sufficient,  the  Comptroller- General  wrote 
on  the  margin,  when  he  returned  the  report  to  the 
intendant,  '^  Good — express  satisfaction.'*'  If  it  was 
more  than  sufficient,  he  wrote,  ^^  Good — express  satis- 
faction and  sensibility.''  There  is  nothing  new  under 
the  sun.  In  1761,  the  Government,  jealous  enough 
of  newspapers,  determined  to  start  one  for  itself,  and 
for  that  purpose  took  under  its  tutelage  the  Gazette 


II.]  CENTEALISATION.  177 

de  France,  So  tlie  public  newsmongers  were  of  course 
to  be  tbe  provincial  intendants,  and  their  sub-news- 
mongers^ of  course^  the  sub-delegates. 

But  alas  !  the  poor  sub -delegates  seem  to  have 
found  either  very  little  news^  or  very  little  which  it 
was  politic  to  publish.  One  reports  that  a  smuggler 
of  salt  has  been  hung_,  and  has  displayed  great  courage ; 
another  that  a  woman  in  his  district  has  had  three 
girls  at  a  birth ;  another  that  a  dreadful  storm  has 
happened,  but — has  done  no  mischief;  a  fourth — living 
in  some  specially  favoured  Utopia — declares  that  in 
spite  of  all  his  efforts  he  has  found  nothing  worth 
recording,,  but  that  he  himself  will  subscribe  to  so 
useful  a  journal,  and  will  exhort  all  respectable  persons 
to  follow  his  example  :  in  spite  of  which  loyal  en- 
deavours, the  journal  seems  to  have  proved  a  failure, 
to  the  great  disgust  of  the  king  and  his  minister, 
who  had  of  course  expected  to  secure  fine  weather  by 
nailing,  like  the  schoolboy  before  a  holiday,  the  hand 
of  the  weather-glass. 

Well  had  it  been,  if  the  intermeddling  of  this 
bureaucracy  had  stopped  there.  But,  by  a  process  of 
evocation  (as  it  was  called),  more  and  more  causes, 
criminal  as  well  as  civil,  were  withdrawn  from  the 
regular  tribunals,  to  those  of  the  intendants  and  the 
Council.  Before  the  intendant  all  the  lower  order 
of  people  were  generally  sent  for  trial.  Bread-riots 
were  a  common  cause  of  such  trials,  and  M.  de 
Tocqueville  asserts  that  he  has  found  sentences^ 
delivered  by  the  intendant,  and  a  local  council  chosen 
by  himself,  by  which  men  were  condemned  to  the 
galleys,  and  even  to  death.  Under  such  a  system, 
under  which  an  intendant  must  have  felt  it  his  interest 
to  pretend  at  all  risks,  that  all  was  going  right,  and 

VOL.  I. — H.  E.  N 


178  THE  ANCIEN  ElEGIME.  [lect. 

to  regard  any  disturbance  as  a  dangerous  exposure 
of  himself  and  his  chiefs — one  can  understand  easily 
enough  that  scene  which  Mr.  Carlyle  has  dramatised 
from  Lacretelle,  concerning  the  canaille,  the  masses, 
as  we  used  to  call  them  a  generation  since  : 

'^  A  dumb  generation — their  voice  only  an  inarti- 
*culate  cry.     Spokesman,  in  the  king^s  council,  in  the 
world^s  forum,  they  have  none  that  finds    credence. 
At  rare  intervals   (as  now,  in    1775)  they  will  fling 
down  their  hoes,  and  hammers ;  and,  to  the  astonish- 
-ment  of  mankind,  flock  hither  and  thither,  dangerous, 
aimless,  get  the  length  even  of  Versailles.     Turgot  is 
altering  the  corn  trade,  abrogating  the  absurdest  corn 
laws ;  there  is  dearth,  real,  or  were  it  even  factitious, 
an   indubitable   scarcity  of   bread.     And   so,  on   the 
.2nd  day  of   May,   1775,   these  waste   multitudes    do 
here,  at  Versailles  chateau,  in  widespread  wretched- 
ness,   in    sallow   faces,    squalor,    winged    raggedness, 
present  as  in  legible  hieroglyphic  writing  their  petition 
of  grievances.     The  chateau-gates  must  be  shut ;  but 
the   king  will  appear  on  the  balcony  and  speak  to 
them.     They  have  seen  the  king's  face  ;  their  petition 
of  grievances  has  been,  if  not  read,  looked  at.     In 
answer,  two  of  them  are  hanged,  on  a  new  gallows 
forty  feet  high,  and  the  rest  driven  back  to  their  dens 
for  a  time.^^ 

Of  course.  What  more  exasperating  and  inexpiable 
insult  to  the  ruling  powers  was  possible  than  this? 
To  persist  in  being  needy  and  wretched,  when  a  whole 
bureaucracy  is  toiling  day  and  night  to  make  them 
prosperous  and  happy  ?  An  insult  only  to  be  avenged 
in  blood.  Eemark  meanwhile,  that  this  centralised 
bureaucracy  was  a  failure ;  that  after  all  the  trouble 
taken  to  govern  these  masses,  they  were  not  governed, 


II.]  CENTRALISATION* 

in  tlie  sense  of  being  made  better^  and  :^otwors^.-  .-^h© 
truth  is,  that  no  centralised  bureaucracy,,  b/  so-called'  7'  j 
^^  paternal  government/^  yet  invented  on  eartK/ 1^^^ 
been  anything  but  a  failure,  or  is  it  like  to  be  any-\y 
thing  else :  because  it  is  founded  on  an  error ;  because 
it  regards  and  treats  men  as  that  which  they  are  not, 
as  things ;  and  not  as  that  which  they  are,  as  persons. 
If  the  bureaucracy  were  a  mere  Briareus  giant,  with 
a  hundred  hands,  helping  the  weak  throughout  the 
length  and  breadth  of  the  empire,  the  system  might 
be  at  least  tolerable.  But  what  if  the  Government 
were  not  a  Briareus  with  a  hundred  hands,  but  a 
Hydra  with  a  hundred  heads  and  mouths,  each  far 
more  intent  on  helping  itself  than  on  helping  the 
people  ?  What  if  sub -delegates  and  other  oflBcials, 
holding  ofEce  at  the  will  of  the  intendant,  had  to  live, 
and  even  provide  against  a  rainy  day  ?  What  if  inten- 
dants,  holding  office  at  the  will  of  the  Comptroller- 
General,  had  to  do  more  than  live,  and  found  it 
prudent  to  realise  as  large  a  fortune  as  possible,  not 
only  against  disgrace,  but  against  success,  and  the 
dignity  fit  for  a  new  member  of  the  Noblesse  de  la 
Robe  ?  Would  not  the  system,  then,  soon  become 
intolerable  ?  Would  there  not  be  evil  times  for  the 
.masses,  till  they  became  something  more  than  masses  ? 

It  is  an  ugly  name,  that  of  "  The  Masses,^^  for  the 
great  majority  of  human  beings  in  a  nation.  He  who 
uses  it  speaks  of  them  not  as  human  beings,  but  as 
things;  and  as  things  not  bound  together  in  one 
living  body,  but  lying  in  a  fortuitous  heap.  A  swarm 
of  ants  is  not  a  mass.  It  has  a  polity  and  a  unity. 
Not  the  ants,  but  the  fir-needles  and  sticks,  of  which 
the  ants  have  piled  their  nest,  are  a  mass. 

The   term,    I   believe,   was    invented   during   the 

N  2 


180  THE  ANCIEN   REGIME.  [lect. 

Ancien  Regime.  Whether  it  was  or  not^  it  expresses 
very  accurately  the  life  of  the  many  in  those  days. 
No  one  would  speak^  if  he  wished  to  speak  exactly^  of 
the  masses  of  the  United  States ;  for  there  every  man 
is,  or  is  presumed  to  be,  a  personage ;  with  his  own 
independence,  his  own  activities,  his  own  rights  and 
duties.  No  one,  I  believe,  would  have  talked  of  the 
masses  in  the  old  feudal  times  ;  for  then  each  individual 
was  someone^s  man,  bound  to  his  master  by  ties  of 
mutual  service,  just  or  unjust,  honourable  or  base,  but 
still  giving  him  a  personality  of  duties  and  rights,  and 
dividing  him  from  his  class. 

Dividing,  I  say.  The  poor  of  the  Middle  Age  had 
little  sense  of  a  common  humanity.  Those  who  owned 
allegiance  to  the  lord  in  the  next  valley  were  not  their 
brothers ;  and  at  their  own  lord^s  bidding,  they 
buckled  on  sword  and  slew  the  next  lord^s  men,  with 
joyful  heart  and  good  conscience.  Only  now  and 
then  misery  compressed  them  into  masses ;  and  they 
ran  together,  as  sheep  run  together  to  face  a  dog. 
Some  wholesale  wrong  made  them  aware  that  they 
were  brothers,  at  least  in  the  power  of  starving ;  and 
they  joined  in  the  cry  which  was  heard,  I  believe,  in 
Mecklenburg  as  late  as  1790  :  ^^  Den  Edelman  wille 
wi  dodschlagen.^^  Then,  in  Wat  Tyler^s  insurrections, 
in  Munster  Anabaptisms,  in  Jacqueries,  they  proved 
themselves  to  be  masses,  if  nothing  better,  striking 
for  awhile,  by  the  mere  weight  of  numbers,  blows 
terrible,  though  aimless — soon  to  be  dispersed  and 
slain  in  their  turn  by  a  disciplined  and  compact 
aristocracy.  Yet  not  always  dispersed,  if  they  could 
find  a  leader ;  as  the  Polish  nobles  discovered  to  their 
cost  in  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century.  Then 
Bogdan  the  Cossack,  a  wild  warrior,  not  without  his 


il]  centralisation.  181 

siiis^  but  having  deserved  well  of  James  Sobieski  and 
tbe  Poles^  found  ;liat  the  neighbouring  noble^s  steward 
had  taken  a  fancy  to  his  windmill  and  his  farm  upon 
the  Dnieper.  Ho  was  thrown  into  prison  on  a  frivolous 
charge,  and  escaped  to  the  Tatars^  leaving  his  wife 
dishonoured,  his  house  burnt,  his  infant  lost  in  the 
flames,  his  eldest  son  scourged  for  protesting  against 
the  wrong.  And  he  returned,  at  the  head  of  an  army 
of  Tatars,  Socinians,  Greeks,  or  what  not,  to  set  free 
the  serfs,  and  exterminate  Jesuits,  Jews,  and  nobles, 
throughout  Podolia,  Volhynia,  Red  Russia ;  to  dese- 
crate the  altars  of  God,  and  slay  his  servants ;  to 
destroy  the  nobles  by  lingering  tortures;  to  strip 
noble  ladies  and  maidens,  and  hunt  them  to  death, 
with  the  whips  of  his  Cossacks ;  and  after  defeating 
the  nobles  in  battle  after  battle,  to  inaugurate  an  era 
of  misery  and  anarchy  from  which  Poland  never 
recovered. 

Thus  did  the  masses  of  Southern  Poland  discover, 
for  one  generation  at  least,  that  they  were  not  many 
things,  but  one  thing ;  a  class,  capable  of  brother- 
hood and  unity,  though,  alas  !  only  of  such  as  belongs 
to  a  pack  of  wolves.  But  such  outbursts  as  this 
were  rare  exceptions.  In  general,  feudalism  kept 
the  people  divided,  and  therefore  helpless.  And  as 
feudalism  died  out,  and  with  it  the  personal  self-respect 
and  loyalty  which  were  engendered  by  the  old  rela- 
tions of  master  and  servant,  the  division  still  remained ; 
and  the  people,  in  France  especially,  became  merely 
masses,  a  swarm  of  incoherent  and  disorganised  things 
intent  on  the  necessaries  of  daily  bread,  like  mites 
crawling  over  each  other  in  a  cheese. 

Out  of  this  mass  were  struggling  upwards  per- 
petually, all  who  had  a  little  ambition,  a  little  scholar- 


182  THE   ANCIEN  Ei^GIME.  [lect. 

sMp^  or  a  little  money,  endeavouring  to  become  mem- 
bers of  the  middle  class  by  obtaining  a  Government 
appointment.  ^^  A  man/^  says  M.  de  Tocqueville^ 
^^  endowed  witli  some  education  and  small  means, 
tliouglit  it  not  decorous  to  die  without  having  been  a 
Government  officer/^  "  Every  man,  according  to  his 
condition/^  says  a  contemporary  writer,  ^^  wants  to  be 
something  by  command  of  the  king/'' 

It  was  not  merely  the  "  natural  vanity  '^  of  which 
M.  de  Tocqueville  accuses  his  countrymen,  which 
stirred  up  in  them  this  eagerness  after  place ;  for  we 
see  the  same  eagerness  in  other  nations  of  the  Con- 
tinent, who  cannot  be  accused  (as  wholes)  of  that 
weakness.  The  fact  is,  a  Government  place,  or  a 
Government  decoration,  cross,  ribbon,  or  what  not,  is, 
in  a  country  where  self-government  is  unknown  or 
dead,  the  only  method,  save  literary  fame,  which  is 
left  to  men  in  order  to  assert  themselves  either  to 
themselves  or  their  fellow-men. 

A  British  or  American  shopkeeper  or  farmer  asks 
nothing  of  his  Government.  He  can,  if  he  chooses, 
be  elected  to  some  local  office  (generally  unsalaried) 
by  the  votes  of  his  fellow-citizens.  But  that  is  his 
right,  and  adds  nothing  to  his  respectability.  The 
test  of  that  latter,  in  a  country  where  all  honest 
callings  are  equally  honourable,  is  the  amount  of 
money  he  can  make  ;  and  a  very  sound  practical  test 
that  is,  in  a  country  where  intellect  and  capital  are 
free.  Beyond  that,  he  is  what  he  is,  and  wishes  to  be 
no  more,  save  what  he  can  make  himself.  He  has  his 
rights,  guaranteed  by  law  and  public  opinion ;  and  as 
long  as  he  stands  within  them,  and  (as  he  well  phrases 
it)  behaves  like  a  gentleman,  he  considers  himself 
as  good  as  any  man ;  and  so  he  is.      But  under  the 


II.]  CENTEALISATION.  183:; 

Tbureaucratic  regime  of  the  Continent,  if  a  man  had 
not  ^^  something  by  command  of  the  king/^  he  was 
nothing;  and  something  he  naturally  wished  to  be,, 
even  by  means  of  a  Government  which  he  disliked 
and  despised.  So  in  France,  where  innumerable  petty 
posts  were  regular  articles  of  sale,  anyone,  it  seems,, 
who  had  saved  a  little  money,  found  it  most  profitable 
to  invest  it  in  a  beadledom  of  some  kind — to  the  great 
detriment  of  the  country,  for  he  thus  withdrew  his 
capital  from  trade ;  but  to  his  own  clear  gain,  for  he 
thereby  purchased  some  immunity  from  public  burdens^ 
and,  as  it  were,  compounded  once  and  for  all  for  his 
taxes.  The  petty  German  princes,  it  seems,  followed 
the  example  of  Prance,  and  sold  their  little  beadle- 
doms likewise ;  but  even  where  offices  were  not  sold,, 
they  must  be  obtained  by  any  and  every  means,  by 
everyone  who  desired  not  to  be  as  other  men  were,, 
and  to  become  Notables,  as  they  were  called  in  France ;. 
so  he  migrated  from  the  country  into  the  nearest  town,, 
and  became  a  member  of  some  small  body — guild,, 
town  council,  or  what  not,  bodies  which  were  infinite 
in  number.  In  one  small  town  M.  de  Tocqueville 
discovers  thirty-six  such  bodies,  ^^  separated  from  each 
other  by  diminutive  privileges,  the  least  honourable 
of  which  was  still  a  mark  of  honour.''^  Quarrelling 
perpetually  with  each  other  for  precedence,  despising 
and  oppressing  the  very  menu  jpewple  from  whom  they 
had  for  the  most  part  sprung,  these  innumerable  small 
bodies,  instead  of  uniting  their  class,  only  served  to 
split  it  up  more  and  more ;  and  when  the  Ee volution, 
broke  them  up,  once  and  for  all,  with  all  other  pri- 
vileges whatsoever,  no  bond  of  union  was  left;  and 
each  man  stood  alone,  proud  of  his  individuality^^ 
• — his  complete  social  isolation ;  till  he  discovered  that^ 


184  THE   ANCIEN   REGIME.  [lect. 

in  ridding  himself  of  superiors^  lie  liad  rid  himself  also 
of  fellows ;  fulfilling,  every  man  in  his  own  person, 
the  old  fable  of  the  bundle  of  sticks ;  and  had  to 
submit,  under  the  Consulate  and  the  Empire,  to  a 
tyranny  to  which  the  Ancien  Eegime  was  freedom 
itself. 

For,  in  France  at  least,  the  Ancien  Regime  was  no 
tyranny.  The  middle  and  upper  classes  had  individual 
liberty — it  may  be,  only  too  much ;  the  liberty  of 
disobeying  a  Government  which  they  did  not  respect. 
^^  However  submissive  the  French  may  have  been 
'before  the  Revolution  to  the  will  of  the  king,  one  sort 
of  obedience  was  altogether  unknown  to  them.  They 
knew  not  what  it  was  to  bow  before  an  illegitimate 
and  contested  power — a  power  but  little  honoured^ 
frequently  despised,  but  willingly  endured  because  it 
may  be  serviceable,  or  because  it  may  hurt.  To  that 
degrading  form  of  servitude  they  were  ever  strangers. 
The  king  inspired  them  with  feelings  ....  which 
have  become  incomprehensible  to  this  generation. 
....  They  loved  him  with  the  affection  due  to  a 
father  ;  they  revered  him  with  the  respect  due  to  God. 
In  submitting  to  the  most  arbitrary  of  his  commands, 
they  yielded  less  to  compulsion  than  to  loyalty ;  and 
thus  they  frequently  preserved  great  freedom  of  mind, 
even  in.  the  most  complete  dependence.  This  liberty, 
irregular,  intermittent,^^  says  M.  de  Tocqueville, 
^^  helped  to  form  those  vigorous  characters,  those 
proud  and  daring  spirits,  which  were  to  make  the 
French  Revolution  at  once  the  object  of  the  admiration 
and  the  terror  of  succeeding  generations.''^ 

This  liberty — too  much  akin  to  anarchy,  in  which 
indeed  it  issued  for  awhile — seems  to  have  asserted 
itself  in  continual  petty  resistance  to  officials  whom . 


II.]  CENTRALISATION.  185 

tliey  did  not  respect^  and  wlio,  in  tlieir  turn^  were 
more  than  a  little  afraid  of  tlie  very  men  out  of  whose 
ranks  they  had  sprung. 

The  French  Government— one  may  say,  every 
Government  on  the  Continent  in  those  days — had  the 
special  weakness  of  all  bureaucracies ;  namely,  that 
want  of  moral  force  which  compels  them  to  fall  back 
at  last  on  physical  force,  and  transforms  the  ruler  into 
a  bully,  and  the  soldier  into  a  policeman  and  a  gaoler. 
A  Government  of  parvenus,  uncertain  of  its  own 
position,  will  be  continually  trying  to  assert  itself  to 
itself,  by  vexatious  intermeddling  and  intruding  pre- 
tensions ;  and  then,  when  it  meets  with  the  resistance 
of  free  and  rational  spirits,  will  either  recoil  in 
awkward  cowardice,  or  fly  into  a  passion,  and  appeal 
to  the  halter  and  the  sword.  Such  a  Government  can 
never  take  itself  for  granted,  because  it  knows  that  it 
is  not  taken  for  granted  by  the  people.  It  never  can 
possess  the  quiet  assurance,  the  courteous  dignity, 
without  swagger,  yet  without  hesitation,  which  belongs 
to  hereditary  legislators;  by  which  term  is  to  be 
understood,  not  merely  kings,  not  merely  noblemen, 
but  every  citizen  of  a  free  nation,  however  democratic, 
who  has  received  from  his  forefathers  the  right,  the 
duty,  and  the  example  of  self-government. 

Such  was  the  political  and  social  state  of  the 
Ancien  Eegime,  not  only  in  France,  but  if  we  are  to 
trust  (as  we  must  trust)  M.  de  Tocqueville,  in  almost 
every  nation  in  Europe,  except  Britain. 

And  as  for  its  moral  state.  We  must  look  for  that 
— if  we  have  need,  which  happily  all  have  not — in  its 
lighter  literature. 

I  shall  not  trouble  you  with  criticisms  on  French 
memoirs — of  which  those  of  Madame  de  Sevigne  are. 


186  THE   ANCIEN  KEGIME.  [lect. 

on  the  whole^  the  most  painful  (as  witness  her  com- 
ments on  the  Marquise  de  Brinvilliers^s  execution), 
because  written  by  a  woman  better  and  more  human 
than  ordinary.  Nor  with  "  Menagiana/^  or  other 
■'ana^s — as  vain  and  artificial  as  they  are  often  foul; 
nor  with  novels  and  poems,  long  since  deservedly 
forgotten.  On  the  first  perusal  of  this  lighter 
literature,  you  will  be  charmed  with  the  ease,  grace, 
lightness  with  which  everything  is  said.  On  the 
second,  you  will  be  somewhat  cured  of  your  admira- 
tion, as  you  perceive  how  little  there  is  to  say.  The 
head  proves  to  be  nothing  but  a  cunning  mask,  with 
no  brains  inside.  Especially  is  this  true  of  a  book, 
which  I  must  beg  those  who  have  read  it  already, 
to  recollect.  To  read  it  I  recommend  no  human  being. 
We  may  consider  it,  as  it  was  considered  in  its  time, 
the  typical  novel  of  the  Ancien  Regime.  A  picture  of 
Spanish  society,  written  by  a  Frenchman,  it  was  held 
to  be — and  doubtless  with  reason — a  picture  of  the 
whole  European  world.  Its  French  editor  (of  1836) 
calls  it  a  grande  epojpee ;  '^  one  of  the  most  prodi- 
gious efforts  of  intelligence,  exhausting  all  forms  of 
humanity  ^^ — in  fact,  a  second  Shakespeare,  according 
to  the  lights  of  the  year  1715.  I  mean,  of  course,  ''  Gil 
Blas.^^  So  picturesque  is  the  book,  that  it  has  fur- 
nished inexhaustible  motifs  to  the  draughtsman.  So 
excellent  is  its  workmanship,  that  the  enthusiastic 
editor  of  1836  tells  us — and  doubtless  he  knows  best 
— that  it  is  the  classic  model  of  the  French  tongue; 
and  that,  as  Le  Sage  ^^  had  embraced  all  that  belonged 
to  man  in  his  composition,  he  dared  to  prescribe  to 
himself  to  embrace  the  whole  French  language  in 
his  work.^^  It  has  been  the  parent  of  a  whole  school 
of  literature — the  Bible   of  tens  of   thousands,  with 


II.]  CENTRALISATION.  187 

admiring  commentators  in  plenty;  on  whose  souls 
may  God  have  mercy  ! 

And  no  wonder.  The  book  has  a  solid  value,  and 
will  always  have,  not  merely  from  its  perfect  art  (ac-- 
cording  to  its  own  measure  and  intention),  but  from 
its  perfect  truthfulness.  It  is  the  Ancien  Eegime 
itself.  It  set  forth  to  the  men  thereof,  themselves^ 
without  veil  or  cowardly  reticence  of  any  kind;  and 
inasmuch  as  every  man  loves  himself,  the  Ancien 
Regime  loved  ^^  Gil  Blas,^^  and  said,  "  The  problem 
of  humanity  is  solved  at  last.^^  But,  ye  long-suffering 
powers  of  heaven,  what  a  solution !  It  is  beside  the 
matter  to  call  the  book  ungodly,  immoral,  base.  Le 
Sage  would  have  answered  :  ^^  Of  course  it  is ;  for  so 
is  the  world  of  which  it  is  a  picture.''^  No ;  the  most 
notable  thing  about  the  book  is  its  intense  stupidity  ; 
its  dreariness,  barrenness,  shallowness,  ignorance  of  the 
human  heart,  want  of  any  human  interest.  If  it  be  an 
epos,  the  actors  in  it  are  not  men  and  women,  but 
ferrets — with  here  and  there,  of  course,  a  stray  rabbit, 
on  whose  brains  they  may  feed.  It  is  the  inhuman 
mirror  of  an  inhuman  age,  in  which  the  healthy  human 
heart  can  find  no  more  interest  than  in  a  pathological 
museum. 

That  last,  indeed,  '^  Gil  Bias  ■'Ms ;  a  collection  of 
diseased  specimens.  No  man  or  woman  in  the  book, 
lay  or  clerical,  gentle  or  simple,  as  far  as  I  can  re- 
member, do  their  duty  in  any  wise,  even  if  they  recol- 
lect that  they  have  any  duty  to  do.  Greed,  chicane, 
hypocrisy,  uselessness  are  the  ruling  laws  of  human 
society.  A  new  book  of  Ecclesiastes,  crying,  '^  Vanity 
of  vanity,  all  is  vanity ;  '^  the  "  conclusion  of  the  whole 
matter  ^^  being  left  out,  and  the  new  Ecclesiastes 
rendered   thereby   diabolic,  instead   of   like   that   old 


188  THE   ANCIEN   ElEGIME.  [lect. 

one,  divine.  For^  instead  of  ^^  Fear  God  and  keep  liis 
commandments,  for  that  is  the  whole  duty  of  man/^ 
Le  Sage  sends  forth  the  new  conclusion,  '^  Take  care 
of  thyself,  and  feed  on  thy  neighbours,  for  that  is  the 
whole  duty  of  man/^  And  very  faithfully  was  his  advice 
(easy  enough  to  obey  at  all  times)  obeyed  for  nearly  a 
century  after  ^^  Gil  Bias  '^  appeared. 

About  the  same  time  there  appeared,  by  a  re- 
markable coincidence,  another  work,  like  it  the  child 
of  the  Ancien  Regime,  and  yet  as  opposite  to  it  as 
light  to  darkness.  If  Le  Sage  drew  men  as  they  were, 
Fenelon  tried  at  least  to  draw  them  as  they  might 
have  been,  and  still  might  be,  were  they  governed 
by  sages  and  by  saints,  according  to  the  laws  of  God. 
^^  Telemaque  ^^  is  an  ideal — imperfect,  doubtless,  as  all 
ideals  must  be  in  a  world  in  which  God^s  ways  and 
thoughts  are  for  ever  higher  than  man  s  ;  but  an  ideal 
nevertheless.  If  its  construction  is  less  complete  than 
that  of  ^^  Gil  Blas,^'  it  is  because  its  aim  is  infinitely 
higher ;  because  the  form  has  to  be  subordinated, 
here  and  there,  to  the  matter.  If  its  political  economy 
be  imperfect,  often  chimerical,  it  is  because  the  mind 
of  one  man  must  needs  have  been  too  weak  to  bring 
into  shape  and  order  the  chaos,  social  and  economic, 
which  he  saw  around  him.  M.  de  Lamartine,  in  his 
brilliant  little  life  of  Fenelon,  does  not  hesitate  to 
trace  to  the  influence  of  '^  Telemaque,'^  the  Utopias 
which  produced  the  revolutions  of  1793  and  1848. 
'^  The  saintly  poet  was,^^  he  says,  "  without  knowing 
it,  the  first  Radical  and  the  first  communist  of  his 
century.'^  But  it  is  something  to  have  preached  to 
princes  doctrines  till  then  unknown,  or  at  least  for- 
gotten for  many  a  generation — free  trade,  peace,  in- 
ternational arbitration,  and  the  "  carriere  ouverte  aux 


u.]  CENTRALISATION.  189 

talents  ^^  for  all  ranks.  It  is  something  to  have 
warned  his  generation  of  the  dangerous  overgrowth  of 
the  metropolis  ;  to  have  prophesied^  as  an  old  Hebrew 
might  have  done,  that  the  despotism  which  he  saw 
around  him  would  end  in  a  violent  revolution.  It  is 
something  to  have  combined  the  highest  Christian 
morality  with  a  hearty  appreciation  of  old  Greek  life ; 
of  its  reverence  for  bodily  health  and  prowess;  its 
joyous  and  simple  country  society;  its  sacrificial  feasts, 
dances,  games  ;  its  respect  for  the  gods ;  its  belief  that 
they  helped,  guided,  inspired  the  sons  of  men.  It  is 
something  to  have  himself  believed  in  God ;  in  a  living 
God,  who,  both  in  this  life  and  in  all  lives  to  come, 
rewarded  the  good  and  punished  the  evil  by  inevitable 
laws.  It  is  something  to  have  warned  a  young  prince, 
in  an  age  of  doctrinal  bigotry  and  practical  atheism, 
that  a  living  God  still  existed,  and  that  his  laws  were 
still  in  force;  to  have  shown  him  Tartarus  crowded 
with  the  souls  of  wicked  monarchs,  while  a  few  of 
kingly  race  rested  in  Elysium,  and  among  them  old 
pagans^ — Inachus,  Cecrops,  Erichthon,  Triptolemus, 
and  Sesostris — rewarded  for  ever  for  having  done 
their  duty,  each  according  to  his  light,  to  the  flocks 
which  the  gods  had  committed  to  their  care.  It  is 
something  to  have  spoken  to  a  prince,  in  such  an  age, 
without  servility,  and  without  etiquette,  of  the  frailties 
and  the  dangers  which  beset  arbitrary  rulers ;  to  have 
told  him  that  royalty,  "when  assumed  to  content  one- 
self, is  a  monstrous  tyranny;  when  assumed  to  fulfil 
its  duties,  and  to  conduct  an  innumerable  people  as  a 
father  conducts  his  children,  a  crushing  slavery,  which 
demands  an  heroic  courage  and  patience. ^^ 

Let  us  honour  the  courtier  who  dared  speak  such 
truths;  and  still  more  the  saintly  cehbate  who  had 


190  THE  ANCIEN  EEGIME.  [lect. 

sufficient  eatliolicity  of  mind  to  envelop  tliem  in  old 
Grecian  dress,  and,  without  playing  false  for  a  moment 
to  his  own  Christianity,  seek  in  the  writings  of  heathen 
sages  a  wider  and  a  healthier  view  of  humanity  than 
was  afforded  by  an  ascetic  creed. 

No  wonder  that  the  appearance  of  ^^  Telemaque/^ 
published  in  Holland  without  the  permission  of 
Penelon,  delighted  throughout  Europe  that  public 
which  is  always  delighted  with  new  truths,  as  long 
as  it  is  not  required  to  practise  them.  To  read 
^^  Telemaque  '^  was  the  right  and  the  enjoyment  of 
everyone.  To  obey  it,  the  duty  only  of  princes.  No 
wonder  that,  on  the  other  hand,  this  ''  Vengeance  de 
peuples,  le9on  des  rois,^^  as  M.  de  Lamartine  calls  it, 
was  taken  for  the  bitterest  satire  by  Louis  XIV.,  and 
completed  the  disgrace  of  one  who  had  dared  to  teach 
the  future  king  of  France  that  he  must  show  himself, 
in  all  things,  the  opposite  of  his  grandfather.  No 
wonder  if  Madame  de  Maintenon  and  the  court 
looked  on  its  portraits  of  wicked  ministers  and 
courtiers  as  caricatures  of  themselves;  portraits  too, 
which,  ^^  composed  thus  in  the  palace  of  Versailles, 
under  the  auspices  of  that  confidence  which  the  king 
had  placed  in  the  preceptor  of  his  heir,  seemed  a 
domestic  treason.'^  No  wonder,  also,  if  the  foolish 
and  envious  world  outside  was  of  the  same  opinion  ; 
and  after  enjoying  for  awhile  this  exposure  of  the 
great  ones  of  the  earth,  left  ^^  Telemaque  ^^  as  an 
Utopia  with  which  private  folks  had  no  concern ;  and 
betook  themselves  to  the  easier  and  more  practical 
model  of  ''  Gil  Bias.'' 

But  there  are  solid  defects  in  ^'  Telemaque '' — 
indicating  corresponding  defects  in  the  author's  mind 
— which  would  have,  in  any  case^  prevented  its  doing 


II.]  CENTRALISATION.    C/ A^  <J  ^1^      ^ 

the  good  work  wMcli  Fenelon  desir^d^;  defeafc$^,w]iicli  > 
are  natural,  as  it  seems  to  me^  to  iis/  yosjition  ^^  ^ 
Eoman  Catholic  priest,  however  saintly'  aji^  pure,  ) " 
however  humane  and  liberal.  The  king,  with  Vmiy 
is  to  be  always  the  father  of  his  people;  which  i^j 
tantamount  to  saying  that  the  people  are  to  be 
always  children,  and  in  a  condition  of  tutelage; 
voluntary,  if  possible:  if  not,  of  tutelage  still.  Of 
self-government,  and  education  of  human  beings  into 
free  manhood  by  the  exercise  of  self-government,  free 
will,  free  thought — of  this  Fenelon  had  surely  not  a 
glimpse.  A  generation  or  two  passed  by,  and  then 
the  peoples  of  Europe  began  to  suspect  that  they 
were  no  longer  children,  but  come  to  manhood ;  and 
determined  (after  the  example  of  Britain  and  America) 
to  assume  the  rights  and  duties  of  manhood,  at  whatever 
risk  of  excesses  or  mistakes  :  and  then  ^^Telemaque^^ 
was  relegated — half  unjustly — as  the  slavish  and 
childish  dream  of  a  past  age,  into  the  schoolroom, 
where  it  still  remains. 

But  there  is  a  defect  in  ^^  Telemaque "  which  is 
perhaps  deeper  still.  No  woman  in  it  exercises  influence 
over  man,  except  for  evil.  Minerva,  the  guiding  and 
inspiring  spirit,  assumes  of  course,  as  Mentor,  a  male 
form  ;  but  her  speech  and  thought  is  essentially 
masculine,  and  not  feminine.  Antiope  is  a  mere  lay- 
figure,  introduced  at  the  end  of  the  book  because 
Telemachus  must  needs  be  allowed  to  have  hope  of 
marrying  someone  or  other.  Venus  plays  but  the 
same  part  as  she  does  in  the  Tannenhauser  legends  of 
the  Middle  Age.  Her  hatred  against  Telemachus  is 
an  integral  element  of  the  plot.  She,  with  the 
other  women  or  nymphs  of  the  romance,  in  spite  of  all 
JFenelon^s  mercy  and  courtesy  towards  human  frailties. 


192  THE   ANCIEN   REGIME.  [lect. 

really  rise  no  higher  tlian  the  witches  of  the  Malleus 
Maleficanum.  Woman — as  the  old  monk  held  who 
derived  femina  from  fe_,  faith^  and  minus,  less,  because 
women  have  less  faith  than  men — is,  in  ^^  Telemaque/^ 
whenever  she  thinks  or  acts,  the  temptress,  the  en- 
chantress ;  the  victim  (according  to  a  very  ancient 
calumny)  of  passions  more  violent,  often  more  lawless^ 
than  man^s. 

Such  a  conception  of  women  must  make  ^^  Tele- 
maque,^^  to  the  end  of  time,  useless  as  a  wholesome 
book  of  education.  It  must  have  crippled  its  influence, 
especially  in  France,  in  its  own  time.  For  there,  for 
good  and  for  evil,  woman  was  asserting  more  and  more 
her  power,  and  her  right  to  power,  over  the  mind  and 
heart  of  man.  Eising  from  the  long  degradation  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  which  had  really  respected  her  only  when 
unsexed  and  celibate,  the  French  woman  had  assumed, 
often  lawlessly,  always  triumphantly,  her  just  freedom; 
her  true  place  as  the  equal,  the  coadjutor,  the  counsellor 
of  man.  Of  all  problems  connected  with  the  education 
of  a  young  prince,  that  of  the  influence  of  woman  was, 
in  the  France  of  the  Ancien  Eegime,  the  most  im- 
portant. And  it  was  just  that  which  Fenelon  did 
not,  perhaps  dared  not,  try  to  touch;  and  which  he 
most  certainly  could  not  have  solved.  Meanwhile, 
not  only  Madame  de  Maintenon,  but  women  whose 
names  it  were  a  shame  to  couple  with  hers,  must  have 
smiled  at,  while  they  hated,  the  saint  who  attempted 
to  dispense  not  only  with  them,  but  with  the  ideal 
queen  who  should  have  been  the  helpmeet  of  the  ideal 
king. 

To  those  who  believe  that  the  world  is  governed 
by  a  living  God,  it  may  seem  strange,  at  first  sight, 
that  this  moral  anarchy  was  allowed  to  endure;  that 


n.]  CENTRALISATION.  193 

the  avenging,  and  yet  most  purifying  storm  of  the 
French  Eevolution,  inevitable  from  Louis  XIV/s  latter 
years,  was  not  allowed  to  burst  two  generations  sooner 
than  it  did.  Is  not  the  answer — that  the  question 
always  is  not  of  destroying  the  world,  but  of  amending 
it  ?  And  that  amendment  must  always  come  from 
within,  and  not  from  without?  That  men  must  be 
taught  to  become  men,  and  mend  their  world  them- 
selves ?  To  educate  men  into  self-government — that 
is  the  purpose  of  the  government  of  God ;  and  some 
of  the  men  of  the  eighteenth  century  did  not  learn 
that  lesson.  As  the  century  rolled  on,  the  human 
mind  arqse  out  of  the  slough  in  which  Le  Sage  found 
it,  into  manifold  and  beautiful  activity,  increasing 
hatred  of  shams  and  lies,  increasing  hunger  after 
truth  and  usefulness.  With  mistakes  and  confusions 
innumerable  they  worked :  but  still  they  worked ; 
planting  good  seed ;  and  when  the  fire  of  the  French 
Revolution  swept  over  the  land,  it  burned  up  the 
rotten  and  the  withered,  only  to  let  the  fresh  herbage 
spring  up  from  underneath. 

But  that  purifying  fire  was  needed.  If  we  inquire 
why  the  many  attempts  to  reform  the  Ancien  Regime, 
which  the  eighteenth  century  witnessed,  were  failures 
one  and  all ;  why  Pombal  failed  in  Portugal,  Aranda 
in  Spain,  Joseph  II.  in  Austria,  Ferdinand  and  Caroline 
in  Naples — for  these  last,  be  it  always  remembered, 
began  as  humane  and  enlightened  sovereigns,  patronis- 
ing liberal  opinions,  and  labouring  to  ameliorate  the 
condition  of  the  poor,  till  they  were  driven  by  the 
murder  of  Marie  Antoinette  into  a  paroxysm  of  rage 
and  terror — why,  above  all,  Louis  XVL,  who  attempted 
deeper  and  wiser  reforms  than  any  other  sovereign, 
failed  more  disastrously  than  any — is  not  the  answer 

VOL.  I. — H.  E.  0 


194  THE   ANCIEN  REGIME.  [lect. 

this^  that  all  these  reforms  would  but  have  cleansed 
the  outside  of  the  cup  and  the  platter,  while  they  left 
the  inside  full  of  extortion  and  excess  ?  It  was  not 
merely  institutions  which  required  to  be  reformed,  but 
men  and  women.  The  spirit  of  ^^  Gil  Bias ''  had  to  be 
cast  out.  The  deadness,  selfishness,  isolation  of  men^s 
souls ;  their  unbelief  in  great  duties,  great  common 
causes,  great  self-sacrifices — in  a  word,  their  unbelief 
in  God,  and  themselves,  and  mankind — all  that  had  to 
be  reformed ;  and  till  that  was  done  all  outward  reform 
would  but  have  left  them,  at  best,  in  brute  ease  and 
peace,  to  that  soulless  degradation,  which  (as  in  the 
Byzantine  empire  of  old,  and  seemingly  in  the  Chinese 
empire  of  to-day)  hides  the  reality  of  barbarism  under 
a  varnish  of  civilisation.  Men  had  to  be  awakened ; 
to  be  taught  to  think  for  themselves,  act  for  them- 
selves, to  dare  and  suffer  side  by  side  for  their  country 
and  for  their  children ;  in  a  word,  to  arise  and  become- 
men  once  more. 

And,  what  is  more,  men  had  to  punish — to  avenge. 
Those  are  fearful  words.  But  there  is,  in  this  God- 
guided  universe,  a  law  of  retribution,  which  will  find 
men  out,  whether  men  choose  to  find  it  out  or  not ; 
a  law  of  retribution;  of  vengeance  inflicted  justly, 
though  not  necessarily  by  just  men.  The  public 
executioner  was  seldom  a  very  estimable  personage, 
at  least  under  the  old  Regime;  and  those  who  have 
been  the  scourges  of  God  have  been,  in  general,  mere 
scourges,  and  nothing  better;  smiting  blindly,  rashly, 
confusedly ;  confounding  too  often  the  innocent  with 
the  guilty,  till  they  have  seemed  only  to  punish  crime 
by  crime,  and  replace  old  sins  by  new.  But,  however 
insoluble,  however  saddening  that  puzzle  be,  I  must 
believe — as  long  as  I  believe  in  any  God  at  all — that. 


II.]  CENTRALISATION  195 

sucli  men  as  Eobespierre  were  His  instruments^  even 
in  their  crimes. 

In  the  case  of  the  French  Revohition^  indeed,  the 
wickedness  of  certain  of  its  leaders  was  part  of  the 
retribution  itself.  For  the  noblesse  existed  surely  to 
make  men  better.  It  did,  by  certain  classes,  the  very 
opposite.  Therefore  it  was  destroyed  by  wicked  men, 
whom  it  itself  had  made  wicked.  For  over  and  above 
all  political,  economic,  social  wrongs,  there  were  wrongs 
personal,  human,  dramatic ;  which  stirred  not  merely 
the  springs  of  covet ousness  or  envy,  or  even  of  a  just 
demand  for  the  freedom  of  labour  and  enterprise : 
but  the  very  deepest  springs  of  rage,  contempt,  and 
hate ;  wrongs  which  caused,  as  I  believe,  the  horrors 
of  the  Revolution. 

It  is  notorious  how  many  of  the  men  most  deeply 
implicated  in  those  'horrors  were  of  the  artist  class — 
by  which  I  signify  not  merely  painters  and  sculptors — 
as  the  word  artist  has  now  got,  somewhat  strangely,  to 
signify,  at  least  in  England — but  what  the  French 
meant  by  artistes — producers  of  luxuries  and  amuse- 
ments, play-actors,  musicians,  and  suchlike,  down  to 
that  '^  distracted  peruke-maker  with  two  fiery  torches,^^ 
who,  at  the  storm  of  the  Bastile,  ^^  was  for  burning  the 
saltpetres  of  the  Arsenal,  had  not  a  woman  run 
screaming;  had  not  a  patriot,  with  some  tincture  of 
natural  philosophy,  instantly  struck  the  wind  out  of 
him,  with  butt  of  musket  on  pit  of  stomach,  overturned 
the  barrels,  and  stayed  the  devouring  element.^^  The 
distracted  peruke-maker  may  have  had  his  wrongs — 
perhaps  such  a  one  as  that  of  poor  Triboulet  the  fool, 
in  ^^  Le  Roi  s'amuse  ^^ — and  his  own  sound  reasons  for 
blowing  down  the  Bastile,  and  the  system  which  kept 
it  up. 

0  2 


196  THE   ANCIEN   E^GIME.    '  [lect. 

For  these  very  ministers  of  luxury — then  miscalled 
art — from  the  periwig-maker  to  the  play-actor — who 
like  them  had  seen  the  frivolity,  the  baseness,  the 
profligacy,  of  the  rulers  to  whose  vices  they  pandered, 
whom  they  despised  while  they  adored !  Figaro 
himself  may  have  looked  up  to  his  master  the  Marquis 
as  a  superior  being  as  long  as  the  law  enabled  the 
Marquis  to  send  him  to  the  Bastile  by  a  lettre  de  cachet; 
yet  Figaro  may  have  known  and  seen  enough  to  excuse 
him,  when  lettres  de  cachet  were  abolished,  for  handing 
the  Marquis  over  to  a  Comite  de  Salut  Public.  Dis- 
appointed play-actors,  like  Collet  d^Herbois;  dis- 
appointed poets,  like  Fabre  d^ Olivet,  were,  they  say, 
especially  ferocious.  Why  not?  Ingenious,  sensitive 
spirits,  used  as  lap-dogs  and  singing-birds  by  men  and 
women  whom  they  felt  to  be  their  own  flesh  and  * 
blood,  they  had,  it  may  be,  a  juster  appreciation  of 
the  actual  worth  of  their  patrons  than  had  our  own 
Pitt  and  Burke.  They  had  played  the  valet :  and  no 
man  was  a  hero  to  them.  They  had  seen  the  nobleman 
expose  himself  before  his  own  helots  :  they  would  try 
if  the  helot  was  not  as  good  as  the  nobleman.  The 
nobleman  had  played  the  mountebank  :  why  should 
not  the  mountebank,  for  once,  play  the  nobleman  ? 
The  nobleman^s  God  had  been  his  five  senses,  with  (to 
use  Mr.  Carlyle's  phrase)  the  sixth  sense  of  vanity : 
why  should  not  the  mountebank  worship  the  same 
God,  like  Carriere  at  Nantes,  and  see  what  grace  and 
gifts  he  too  might  obtain  at  that  altar  ? 

But  why  so  cruel  ?  Because,  with  many  of  these 
men,  I  more  than  suspect,  there  were  wrongs  to  be 
avenged  deeper  than  any  wrongs  done  to  the  sixth 
sense  of  vanity.  Wrongs  common  to  them,  and  to  a 
great  portion  of  the  respectable  middle  class,  and  much 


II.]  CENTEALISATION.  197 

of  tlie  lower  class  :  but  wrongs  to  which  they  and  their 
families^  being  most  in  contact  with  the  noblesse^  would 
be  especially  exposed;  namely,  wrongs  to  women. 

Everyone  who  knows  the  literature  of  that  time, 
must  know  what  I  mean  :  what  had  gone  on  for  more 
than  a  century,  it  may  be  more  than  tAvo,  in  France,  in 
Italy,  and — I  am  sorry  to  have  to  say  it — Germany 
likewise.  All  historians  know  what  I  mean,  and  how 
enormous  was  the  evil.  I  only  wonder  that  they  have 
so  much  overlooked  that  item  in  the  causes  of  the 
Revolution.  It  seems  to  me  to  have  been  more  patent 
and  potent  in  the  sight  of  men,  as  it  surely  was  in  the 
sight  of  Almighty  God,  than  all  the  political  and 
economic  wrongs  put  together.  They  might  have 
issued  in  a  change  of  dynasty  or  of  laws.  That,  issued 
in  the  blood  of  the  offenders.  Not  a  girl  was  en- 
ticed into  Louis  J^V.^s  Petit  Trianon,  or  other  den 
of  aristocratic  iniquity,  but  left  behind  her,  parents 
nursing  shame  and  sullen  indignation,  even  while  they 
fingered  the  ill-gotten  price  of  their  daughter's  honour; 
and  left  behind  also,  perhaps,  some  unhappy  boy  of 
her  own  class,  in  whom  disappointment  and  jealousy 
were  transformed — and  who  will  blame  him  ? — into 
righteous  indignation,  and  a  very  sword  of  God ;  all 
the  more  indignant,  and  all  the  more  righteous,  if 
education  helped  him  to  see,  that  the  maiden's 
acquiescence,  her  pride  in  her  own  shame,  was  the 
ugliest  feature  in  the  whole  crime,  and  the  most 
potent  reason  for  putting  an  end,  however  fearful,  to 
a  state  of  things  in  which  such  a  fate  was  thought  an 
honour  and  a  gain,  and  not  a  disgrace  and  a  ruin  ;  in 
which  the  most  gifted  daughters  of  the  lower  classes 
had  learnt  to  think  it  more  noble  to  become — that 
which  they  became — than  the  wives  of  honest  men. 


198  THE   ANCIEN   ElEGIME.  [lect. 

If  you  will  read  fairly  tlie  literature  of  tlie  Ancien 
Eegime^  whether  in  France  or  elsewhere^  you  will  see 
that  my  facts  are  true.  If  you  have  human  hearts  in 
you,  you  will  see  in  them,  it  seems  to  me,  an  explana- 
tion of  many  a  guillotinade  and  fusillade,  as  yet 
explained  only  on  the  ground  of  madness — an  hypo- 
thesis which  (as  we  do  not  yet  in  the  least  understand 
what  madness  is)  is  no  explanation  at  all. 

An  age  of  decay,  incoherence,  and  makeshift, 
varnish  and  gilding  upon  worm-eaten  furniture,  and 
mouldering  wainscot,  was  that  same  Ancien  Eegime. 
And  for  that  very  reason  a  picturesque  age ;  like  one 
of  its  own  landscapes.  A  picturesque  bit  of  unculti- 
vated mountain,  swarming  with  the  princess  game; 
a  picturesque  old  robber  schloss  above,  now  in  ruins  ; 
and  below,  perhaps,  the  picturesque  new  schloss,  with 
its  French  fountains  and  gardens,  French  nymphs  of 
marble,  and  of  flesh  and  blood  likewise,  which  the 
prince  has  partially  paid  for,  by  selling  a  few  hundred 
young  men  to  the  English  to  fight  the  Yankees.  The 
river,  too,  is  picturesque,  for  the  old  bridge  has  not 
been  repaired  since  it  was  blown  up  in  the  Seven 
Years^  War ;  and  there  is  but  a  single  lazy  barge  float- 
ing down  the  stream,  owing  to  the  tolls  and  tariffs 
of  his  Serene  Highness;  the  village  is  picturesque, 
for  the  flower  of  the  young  men  are  at  the  wars,  and 
the  place  is  tumbling  down  ;  and  the  two  old  peasants 
in  the  foreground,  with  the  single  goat  and  the  hamper 
of  vine-twigs,  are  very  picturesque  likewise,  for  they 
are  all  in  rags. 

How  sad  to  see  the  picturesque  element  eliminated, 
and  the  quiet  artistic  beauty  of  the  scene  destroyed ; — 
to  have  steamers  pufiing  up  and  down  the  river,  and  a 
railroad  hurrying  along  its  banks  the  wealth  of  the 


II.]  CENTEALISATION.  '  199 

Old  World,  in  exchange  for  tlie  wealth  of  the  New — 
or  hurrying,  it  may  be,  whole  regiments  of  free  and 
educated  citizen- soldiers,  who  fight,  they  know  for 
what.  How  sad  to  see  the  alte  schloss  desecrated  by 
tourists,  and  the  neue  schloss  converted  into  a  cold- 
water  cure.  How  sad  to  see  the  village,  church  and 
all,  built  up  again  brand-new,  and  whitewashed  to  the 
very  steeple-top  ; — a  new  school  at  the  town-end — a 
new  crucifix  by  the  wayside.  How  sad  to  see  the  old 
folk  well  clothed  in  the  fabrics  of  England  or  Belgium, 
doing  an  easy  trade  in  milk  and  fruit,  because  the 
land  they  till  has  become  their  own,  and  not  the 
princess ;  while  their  sons  are  thriving  farmers  on  the 
prairies  of  the  far  West.  Very  unpicturesque,  no 
doubt,  is  wealth  and  progress,  peace  and  safety,  clean- 
liness and  comfort.  But  they  possess  advantages 
unknown  to  the  Ancien  Regime,  which  was,  if  nothing 
else,  picturesque.  Men  could  paint  amusing  and  often 
pretty  pictures  of  its  people  and  its  places. 

Consider  that  word,  ^^  picturesque.''^  It,  and  the 
notion  of  art  which  it  expresses,  are  the  children  of 
the  Ancien  Eegime — of  the  era  of  decay.  The  healthy, 
vigorous,  earnest,  progressive  Middle  Age  never  dreamed 
of  admiring,  much  less  of  painting,  for  their  own  sake, 
rags  and  ruins ;  the  fashion  sprang  up  at  the  end  of 
the  seventeenth  century;  it  lingered  on  during  the 
first  quarter  of  our  century,  kept  alive  by  the  reaction 
from  1815-25.  It  is  all  but  dead  now,  before  the 
return  of  vigorous  and  progressive  thought.  An 
admirer  of  the  Middle  Ages  now  does  not  build  a  sham 
ruin  in  his  grounds ;  he  restores  a  church,  blazing 
with  colour,  like  a  mediaeval  illumination.  He  has 
learnt  to  look  on  that  which  went  by  the  name  of 
picturesque  in  his  great -grandf  a  therms  time,  as  an  old 


200  THE   ANCIEN   REGIME.  [lect. 

Greek  or  a  Middle  Age  monk  would  have  done — as 
something  squalid,  ugly,  a  sign  of  neglect,  disease, 
death ;  and  therefore  to  be  hated  and  abolished,  if  it 
cannot  be  restored.  At  Carcassone,  now,  M.  Viollet- 
le-Duc,  under  the  auspices  of  the  Emperor  of  the 
French,  is  spending  his  vast  learning,  and  much  money, 
simply  in  abolishing  the  picturesque ;  in  restoring 
stone  for  stone,  each  member  of  that  wonderful 
museum  of  Middle  Age  architecture  :  Eoman,  Visi- 
gothic,  Moslem,  Romaine,  Early  English,  later  French, 
all  is  being  reproduced  exactly  as  it  must  have  existed 
centuries  since.  No  doubt  that  is  not  the  highest 
function  of  art :  but  it  is  a  preparation  for  the  highest, 
a  step  toward  some  future  creative  school.  As  the 
early  Italian  artists,  by  careful  imitation,  absorbed 
into  their  minds  the  beauty  and  meaning  of  old  Greek 
and  Roman  art;  so  must  the  artists  of  our  days  by 
the  art  of  the  Middle  Age  and  the  Renaissance.  They 
must  learn  to  copy,  before  they  can  learn  to  surpass ; 
and,  meanwhile,  they  must  learn — indeed  they  have 
learnt — that  decay  is  ugliness,  and  the  imitation  of 
decay,  a  making  money  out  of  the  public  shame. 

The  picturesque  sprang  up,  as  far  as  I  can  dis- 
cover, suddenly,  during  the  time  of  exhaustion  and 
recklessness  which  followed  the  great  struggles  of  the 
sixteenth  century.  Salvator  Rosa  and  Callot,  two  of 
the  earliest  professors  of  picturesque  art,  have  never 
been  since  surpassed.  For  indeed, '  they  drew  from 
life.  The  rags  and  the  ruins,  material,  and  alas  ! 
spiritual,  were  all  around  them  ;  the  lands  and  the 
creeds  alike  lay  waste.  There  was  ruffianism  and 
misery  among  the  masses  of  Europe ;  unbelief  and 
artificiality  among  the  upper  classes ;  churches  and 
monasteries  defiled,  cities  sacked,  farmsteads  plundered 
and  ruinate^  and  all  the  wretchedness  which  Callot  has 


I. 


II.]  CENTRALISATION.  201 

immortalised — for  a  warning  to  evil  rulers — in  Ms 
Miseres  de  la  Guerre.  The  world  was  all  gone  wrong: 
but  as  for  setting  it  right  again — who  could  do  that  ? 
And  so  men  fell  into  a  sentimental  regret  for  the 
past^  and  its  beauties,  all  exaggerated  by  the  fore- 
shortening of  time;  while  they  wanted  strength  or 
faith  to  reproduce  it.  At  last  they  became  so  accus- 
tomed to  the  rags  and  ruins,  that  they  looked  on  them 
as  the  normal  condition  of  humanity,  as  the  normal 
field  for  painters. 

Only  now  and  then,  and  especially  toward  the 
latter  half  of  the  eighteenth  century,  when  thought 
began  to  revive,  and  men  dreamed  of  putting  the 
world  to  rights  once  more,  there  rose  before  them 
glimpses  of  an  Arcadian  ideal.  Country  life — the 
primaeval  calling  of  men — how  graceful  and  pure  it 
might  be  !  How  graceful — if  not  pure — it  once  had 
been  !  The  boors  of  Teniers  and  the  beggars  of  Murillo 
might  be  true  to  present  fact ;  but  there  was  a  fairer 
ideal,  which  once  had  been  fact,  in  the  Eclogues  of 
Theocritus,  and  the  Loves  of  Daphnis  and  Chloe. 
And  so  men  took  to  dreaming  of  shepherds  and 
shepherdesses,  and  painting  them  on  canvas,  and 
modelling  them  in  china,  according  to  their  cockney 
notions  of  what  they  had  been  once,  and  always 
ought  to  be.  We  smile  now  at  Sevres  and  Dresden 
shepherdesses;  but  the  wise  man  will  surely  see  in 
them  a  certain  pathos.  They  indicated  a  craving 
after  something  better  than  boorishness;  and  the  many 
men  and  women  may  have  become  the  gentler  and 
purer  by  looking  even  at  them,  and  have  said  sadly  to 
themselves  :  ^^  Such  might  have  been  the  peasantry  of 
half  Europe,  had  it  not  been  for  devastations  of  the 
Palatinate,  wars  of  succession,  and  the  wicked  wills  of 
emperors  and  kings. ^'' 


LECTURE   III. 


THE    EXPLOSIVE    FORCES. 


In  a  former  lecture  in  this  Institution^  I  said  tliat  tlie 
human  race  owed  more  to  tlie  eighteenth,  century 
than  to  any  century  since  the  Christian  era.  It  may 
seem  a  bold  assertion  to  those  who  value  duly  the 
century  which  followed  the  revival  of  Greek  literature, 
and  consider  that  the  eighteenth  century  was  but  the 
child,  or  rather  grandchild,  thereof.  But  I  must 
persist  in  my  opinion,  even  though  it  seem  to  be 
inconsistent  with  my  description  of  the  very  same  era 
as  one  of  decay  and  death.  For  side  by  side  with  the 
death,  there  was  manifold  fresh  birth  ;  side  by  side 
with  the  decay  there  was  active  growth ; — side  by  side 
with  them,  fostered  by  them,  though  generally  in 
strong  opposition  to  them,  whether  conscious  or  un- 
conscious. We  must  beware,  however,  of  trying  to 
find  between  that  decay  and  that  growth  a  bond  of 
cause  and  effect  where  there  is  really  none.  The 
general  decay  may  have  determined  the  course  of 
many  men^s  thoughts  ;  but  it  no  more  set  them 
thinking  than  (as  I  have  heard  said)  the  decay  of  the 


LECT.  III.]  THE   EXPLOSIVE   FORCES.  203 

Ancien  E/egime  produced  tlie  new  E/egime — a  loose 
metaplior^  whicli,  like  all  metapliors^  will  not  liold 
water,  and  must  not  be  taken  for  a  pHlosopliic  truth. 
That  would  be  to  confess  man — what  I  shall  never 
confess  him  to  be — the  creature  of  circumstances ;  it 
would  be  to  fall  into  the  same  fallacy  of  spontaneous 
generation  as  did  the  ancients,  when  thej  believed  that 
bees  were  bred  from  the  carcass  of  a  dead  ox.  In  the 
first  place,  the  bees  were  no  bees,  but  flies — unless 
when  some  true  swarm  of  honey  bees  may  have  taken 
up  their  abode  within  the  empty  ribs,  as  Samson^s 
bees  did  in  that  of  the  lion.  But  bees  or  flies,  each 
sprang  from  an  egg^  independent  of  the  carcass, 
having  a  vitality  of  its  own  :  it  was  fostered  by  the 
carcass  it  fed  on  during  development ;  but  bred  from 
it  it  was  not,  any  more  than  Marat  was  bred  from  the 
decay  of  the  Ancien  Regime.  There  are  flies  which, 
by  feeding  on  putridity,  become  poisonous  themselves, 
as  did  Marat :  but  even  they  owe  their  vitality  and 
organisation  to  something  higher  than  that  on  which 
they  feed ;  and  each  of  them,  however,  defaced  and 
debased,  was  at  first  a  ^'  thought  of  God.^^  All  true 
manhood  consists  in  the  defiance  of  circumstances ; 
and  if  any  man  be  the  creature  of  circumstances,  it 
is  because  he  has  become  so,  like  the  drunkard;  be- 
cause he  has  ceased  to  be  a  man,  and  sunk  downward 
toward  the  brute. 

Accordingly  we  shall  find,  throughout  the  18th 
century,  a  stirring  of  thought,  an  originality,  a  re- 
sistance to  circumstances,  an  indignant  defiance  of 
circumstances,  which  would  have  been  impossible,  had 
circumstances  been  the  true  lords  and  shapers  of  man- 
kind. Had  that  latter  been  the  case,  the  downward 
progress   of   the   Ancien   Eegime   would    have    been 


201  THE   ANCIEN   REGIME.  [lect. 

irremediable.  Each  generation,  conformed  more  and 
more  to  the  element  in  which  it  livedo  would  have  sunk 
deeper  in  dull  acquiescence  to  evil,  in  ignorance  of  all 
cravings  save  those  of  the  senses ;  and  if  at  any  time 
intolerable  wrong  or  want  had  driven  it  to  revolt^  it 
would  have  issued,  not  in  the  proclamation  of  new  and 
vast  ideas,  but  in  an  anarchic  struggle  for  revenge 
and  bread. 

There  are  races,  alas  !  which  seem,  for  the  present 
at  least,  mastered  by  circumstances.  Some,  like  the 
Chinese,  have  sunk  back  into  that  state ;  some,  like 
the  negro  in  Africa,  seem  not  yet  to  have  emerged 
from  it ;  but  in  Europe,  during  the  eighteenth  century, 
were  working  not  merely  new  forces  and  vitalities 
(abstractions  which  mislead  rather  than  explain),  but 
living  persons  in  plenty,  men  and  women,  with  inde- 
pendent and  original  hearts  and  brains,  instinct,  in  spite 
of  all  circumstances,  with  power  which  we  shall  most 
wisely  ascribe  directly  to  Him  who  is  the  Lord  and 
Giver  of  Life. 

Such  persons  seemed — I  only  say  seemed — most 
numerous  in  England  and  in  Germany.  But  there 
were  enough  of  them  in  France  to  change  the  destiny 
of  that  great  nation  for  awhile — perhaps  for  ever. 

M.  de  Tocqueville  has  a  whole  chapter,  and  a  very 
remarkable  one,  which  appears  at  first  sight  to  militate 
against  my  belief — a  chapter  '^  showing  that  Franco 
was  the  country  in  which  men  had  become  most 
alike/' 

^'  The  men,''  he  says,  '^  of  that  time,  especially 
those  belonging  to  the  upper  and  middle  ranks  of 
society,  who  alone  were  at  all  conspicuous,  were  all 
exactly  alike." 

And  it  must  be  allowed,  that  if  this  were  true  of 


III.]  THE    EXPLOSIVE   FORCES.  205 

the  upper  and  middle  classes^  it  must  liave  been  still 
more  true  of  tlie  mass  of  the  lowest  population,  who, 
being  most  animal,  are  always  most  moulded — or 
rather  crushed — by  their  own  circumstances,  by  public 
opinion,  and  by  the  wants  of  five  senses,  common  to 
all  alike. 

But  when  M.  de  Tocqueville  attributes  this  curious 
fact  to  the  circumstances  of  their  political  state — to 
that  ^'  government  of  one  man  which  in  the  end  has 
the  inevitable  effect  of  rendering  all  men  alike,  and  all 
mutually  indifferent  to  their  common  fate  ^' — we  must 
differ,  even  from  him :  for  facts  prove  the  impotence 
of  that,  or  of  any  other  circumstance,  in  altering  the 
hearts  and  souls  of  men,  in  producing  in  them  anything 
but  a  mere  superficial  and  temporary  resemblance. 

For  all  the  while  there  was,  among  these  very 
French,  here  and  there  a  variety  of  character  and 
purpose,  sufficient  to  burst  through  that  very  des- 
potism, and  to  develop  the  nation  into  manifold,  new, 
and  quite  original  shapes.  Thus  it  was  proved  that 
the  uniformity  had  been  only  in  their  outside  crust 
and  shell.  What  tore  the  nation  to  pieces  during  the 
Eeign  of  Terror,  but  the  boundless  variety  and 
originality  of  the  characters  which  found  themselves 
suddenly  in  free  rivalry  ?  What  else  gave  to  the 
undisciplined  levies,  the  bankrupt  governments,  the 
parvenu  heroes  of  the  Republic,  a  manifold  force,  a 
self-dependent  audacity,  which  made  them  the  con- 
querors, and  the  teachers  (for  good  and  evil)  of  the 
civilised  world  ?  If  there  was  one  doctrine  which  the 
French  Revolution  specially  proclaimed — which  it 
caricatured  till  it  brought  it  into  temporary  disrepute 
— it  was  this :  that  no  man  is  like  another ;  that  in 
each  is  a  God-given  ^^  individuality,"  an  independent 


206  THE   ANCIEN   E^GIME.  [lect. 

soul^  wliicli  no  government  or  man  has  a  right  to 
crush,  or  can  crush  in  the  long  run :  but  which  ought 
to  have,  and  must  have,  a  *^  carriere  ouverte  anx 
talents/^  freely  to  do  the  best  for  itself  in  the  battle 
of  life.  The  French  Eevolution,  more  than  any  event 
since  twelve  poor  men  set  forth  to  convert  the  world 
some  eighteen  hundred  years  ago,  proves  that  man 
ought  not  to  be,  and  need  not  be,  the  creature  of 
circumstances,  the  puppet  of  institutions;  but,  if  he- 
will,  their  conqueror  and  their  lord. 

Of  these  original  spirits  who  helped  to  bring  life 
out  of  death,  and  the  modern  world  out  of  the  decay 
of  the  mediaBval  world,  the  French  jjhilosophes  and 
encyclopedists  are,  of  course,  the  most  notorious. 
They  confessed,  for  the  most  part,  that  their  original 
inspiration  had  come  from  England.  They  were,  or 
considered  themselves,  the  disciples  of  Locke ;  whose 
philosophy,  it  seems  to  me,  their  own  acts  disproved. 

And  first,  a  few  words  on  these  same  jphilosophes. 
One  may  be  thoroughly  aware  of  their  deficiencies,  of 
their  sins,  moral  as  well  as  intellectual ;  and  yet  one 
may  demand  that  everyone  should  judge  them  fairly 
— which  can  only  be  done  by  putting  himself  in  their 
place ;  and  any  fair  judgment  of  them  will,  I  think, 
lead  to  the  conclusion  that  they  were  not  mere  de- 
stroyers, inflamed  with  hate  of  everything  which  man- 
kind had  as  yet  held  sacred.  Whatever  sacred  things 
they  despised,  one  sacred  thing  they  reverenced,  which 
men  had  forgotten  more  and  more  since  the  seventeenth 
century — common  justice  and  common  humanity.  It 
was  this,  I  believe,  which  gave  them  their  moral  force. 
It  was  this  which  drew  towards  them  the  hearts,  not 
merely  of  educated  bourgeois  and  nobles  (on  the 
menu  peujple  they  had  no  influence,  and  did  not  care 


III.]  THE   EXPLOSIVE   EORCES,  207 

to  have  any)^  but  of  every  continental  sovereign  who 
felt  in  himself  higher  aspirations  than  those  of  a 
mere  selfish  tyrant — Frederick  the  Great^  Christina  of 
Sweden^  Joseph  of  Austria,  and  even  that  fallen  Juno, 
Catharine  of  Eussia,  with  all  her  sins.  To  take  the 
most  extreme  instance — Voltaire.  We  may  question 
his  being  a  philosopher  at  all.  We  may  deny  that  he 
had  even  a  tincture  of  formal  philosophy.  We  may 
doubt  much  whether  he  had  any  of  that  human  and 
humorous  common  sense,  which  is  often  a  good  sub- 
stitute for  the  philosophy  of  the  schools.  We  may 
feel  against  him  a  just  and  honest  indignation  when 
we  remember  that  he  dared  to  travestie  into  a  foul 
satire  the  tale  of  his  country^s  purest  and  noblest 
heroine ;  but  we  must  recollect,  at  the  same  time,  that 
he  did  a  public  service  to  the  morality  of  his  own 
country,  and  of  all  Europe,  by  his  indignation — quite 
as  just  and  honest  as  any  which  we  may  feel — at  the 
legal  murder  of  Calas.  We  must  recollect  that,  if 
he  exposes  baseness  and  foulness  with  too  cynical  a 
license  of  speech  (in  which,  indeed,  he  sinned  no  more 
than  had  the  average  of  French  writers  since  the 
days  of  Montaigne),  he  at  least  never  advocates  them, 
as  did  Le  Sage.  We  must  recollect  that,  scattered 
throughout  his  writings,  are  words  in  favour  of  that 
which  is  just,  merciful,  magnanimous,  and  even,  at 
times,  in  favour  of  that  which  is  pure ;  which  proves 
that  in  Voltaire,  as  in  most  men,  there  was  a  double 
self — the  one  sickened  to  cynicism  by  the  iniquity  and 
folly  which  he  saw  around  him — the  other,  hungering 
after  a  nobler  life,  and  possibly  exciting  that  hunger 
in  one  and  another,  here  and  there,  who  admired  him 
for  other  reasons  than  the  educated  mob,  which  cried 
after  him  ^^  Vive  la  Pucelle.''^ 


208  THE   ANCIEN   REGIME.  [lect. 

Rousseau^  too.  Easy  it  is  to  feel  disgust^  contempt^ 
for  the  ^^  Confessions  ^^  and  the  ^^  iSTouyelle  Heloise  ^' — 
for  inuch_,  too  much,  in  the  man's  own  life  and  cha- 
racter. One  would  think  the  worse  of  the  young 
Englishman  who  did  not  so  feel,  and  express  his 
feelings  roundly  and  roughly.  But  all  young  English- 
men should  recollect,  that  to  Rousseau^s  ^^Emile^^ 
they  owe  their  deliverance  from  the  useless  pedantries, 
the  degrading  brutalities,  of  the  mediaeval  system  of 
school  education;  that  ^^Emile^^  awakened  through- 
out civilised  Europe  a  conception  of  education  just, 
humane,  rational,  truly  scientific,  because  founded 
upon  facts ;  that  if  it  had  not  been  written  by  one 
writhing  under  the  bitter  consequences  of  mis-educa- 
tion, and  feeling  their  sting  and  their  brand  day  by 
day  on  his  own  spirit.  Miss  Edgeworth  might  never 
have  reformed  our  nurseries,  or  Dr.  Arnold  our  public 
schools. 

And  so  with  the  rest  of  the  philosophes.  That 
there  were  charlatans  among  them,  vain  men,  pre- 
tentious men,  profligate  men,  selfish,  self-seeking,  and 
hypocritical  men,  who  doubts  ?  Among  what  class  of 
men  were  there  not  such  in  those  evil  days  ?  In  what 
class  of  men  are  there  not  such  now,  in  spite  of  all 
social  and  moral  improvement  ?  But  nothing  but  the 
conviction,  among  the  average,  that  they  were  in  the 
right — that  they  were  fighting  a  battle  for  which  it 
was  worth  while  to  dare,  and  if  need  be  to  suffer, 
could  have  enabled  them  to  defy  what  was  then  public 
opinion,  backed  by  overwhelming  physical  force. 

Their  intellectual  defects  are  patent.  No  one  can 
deny  that  their  inductions  were  hasty  and  partial  :  but 
then  they  were  inductions  as  opposed  to  the  dull 
pedantry  of  the  schools^  which  rested  on  tradition  only 


III.]  THE    EXPLOSIVE   FORCES^/ X>  2W& 

half  believed,  or  pretended  to  be  believ^.  No  onef it^^n^ 
deny  that  their  theories  were  too  general  aiicj'  abstract; 
but  then  they  were  theories  as  opposed  to  tiiW  a©-, 
theory  of  the  Ancien  Regime,  which  was,  ^^  Let  us  eat 
and  drink,  for  to-morrow  we  die/^ 

Theories — principles — by  them  if  men  do  not  live, 
by  them  men  are,  at  least,  stirred  into  life,  at  the 
sight  of  something  more  noble  than  themselves. 
Only  by  great  ideas,  right  or  wrong,  could  such  a 
world  as  that  which  Le  Sage  painted,  be  roused  out 
of  its  slough  of  fonl  self-satisfaction,  and  equally  foul 
self-discontent. 

For  mankind  is  ruled  and  guided,  in  the  long  run, 
not  by  practical  considerations,  not  by  self-interest, 
not  by  compromises ;  but  by  theories  and  principles, 
and  those  of  the  most  abstruse,  delicate,  supernatural, 
and  literally  unspeakable  kind ;  which,  whether  they 
be  according  to  reason  or  not,  are  so  little  according 
to  logic — that  is,  to  speakable  reason — that  they  can- 
not be  put  into  speech.  Men  act,  whether  singly  or  in 
masses,  by  impulses  and  instincts  for  which  they  give 
reasons  quite  incompetent,  often  quite  irrelevant ;  but 
which  they  have  caught  from  each  other,  as  they  catch 
fever  or  small-pox ;  as  unconsciously,  and  yet  as  prac- 
tically and  potently;  just  as  the  nineteenth  century- 
has  caught  from  the  philosophers  of  the  eighteenth 
most  practical  rules  of  conduct,  without  even  (in  most 
cases)  having  read  a  word  of  their  works. 

And  what  has  this  century  caught  from  these 
philosophers  ?  One  rule  it  has  learnt,  and  that  a  most 
practical  one — to  ■  appeal  in  all  cases,  as  much  as  pos- 
sible, to  ^^  Reason  and  the  Laws  of  Nature.''^  That,  at 
least,  the  philosophers  tried  to  do.  Often  they  failed. 
Their  conceptions  of  reason  and  of  the  laws  of  nature 
VOL.  I. — H.  E.  ^  p 


210  THE  ANOIEN   ElEGIME.  [lect. 

being  often  incorrect^  they  appealed  to  unreason  and 
to  laws  wMcli  were  not  those  of  nature.  '^  The  fixed 
idea  of  them  all  was/'  says  M.  de  Tocqueville,  ^^  to 
substitute  simple  and  elementary  rules,  deduced  from 
reason.,  and  natural  law,  for  the  complicated  traditional 
customs  which  governed  the  society  of  their  time/^ 
They  were  often  rash,  hasty,  in  the  application  of  their 
method.  They  ignored  whole  classes  of  facts,  which, 
though  spiritual  and  not  physical,  are  just  as  much 
facts,  and  facts  for  science,  as  those  which  concern  a 
.stone  or  a  fungus.  They  mistook  for  merely  com- 
plicated traditional  customs,  many  most  sacred  insti- 
tutions which  were  just  as  much  founded  on  reason 
and  natural  law,  as  any  theories  of  their  own.  But 
who  shall  say  that  their  method  was  not  correct  ? 
That  it  was  not  the  only  method  ?  They  appealed  to 
reason.  Would  you  have  had  them  appeal  to  unreason? 
They  appealed  to  natural  law.  Would  you  have  had 
them  appeal  to  unnatural  law  ? — law  according  to 
which  God  did  not  make  this  world  ?  Alas  !  that  had 
been  done  too  often  already.  Solomon  saw  it  done  in 
his  time,  and  called  it  folly,  to  which  he  prophesied  no 
good  end.  Eabelais  saw  it  done  in  his  time ;  and 
wrote  his  chapters  on  the  ^^  Children  of  Physis  and  the 
Children  of  Antiphysis/^  Bat,  born  in  an  evil  genera- 
tion, which  was  already,  even  in  1500,  ripening  for  the 
revolution  of  1789,  he  was  sensual  and,  I  fear,  cowardly 
■enough  to  hide  his  light,  not  under  a  bushel,  but  under 
a,  dunghill;  till  men  took  him  for  a  jester  of  jests;  and 
his  great  wisdom  was  lost  to  the  worse  and  more 
foolish  generations  which  followed  him,  and  thought 
they  understood  him. 

But  as  for  appealing  to  natural  law  for  that  which 
is  good  for  men,  and  to  reason  for  the  power  of  dis- 


m.]  THE   EXPLOSIVE   FORCES.  211 

cerning  that  same  good — if  man  cannot  find  trutli  by 
that  method,  by  what  method  shall  he  find  it  ? 

And  thus  it  happened  that,  though  these  philo- 
sophers and  encyclopaedists  Avere  not  men  of  science, 
they  were  at  least  the  heralds  and  the  coadjutors  of 
science. 

We  may  call  them,  and  justly,  dreamers,  theorists, 
fanatics.  But  we  must  recollect  that  one  thing  they 
meant  to  do,  and  did.  They  recalled  men  to  facts; 
they  bid  them  ask  of  everything  they  saw — What 
are  the  facts  of  the  case?  Till  we  know  the  facts, 
argument  is  worse  than  useless. 

Now  the  habit  of  asking  for  the  facts  of  the  case 
must  deliver  men  more  or  less  from  that  evil  spirit 
which  the  old  Eomans  called  ^^Fama;^"  from  her 
whom  Virgil  described  in  the  ^neid  as  the  ugliest, 
the  falsest,  and  the  cruellest  of  monsters. 

Prom  ^^  Fama ;  ^^  from  rumours,  hearsays,  exaggera- 
tions, scandals,  superstitions,  public  opinions — whether 
from  the  ancient  public  opinion  that  the  sun  went 
round  the  earth,  or  the  equally  public  opinion,  that 
those  who  dared  to  differ  from  public  opinion  were 
hateful  to  the  deity,  and  therefore  worthy  of  death 
— from  all  these  blasts  of  Famous  lying  trumpet 
they  helped  to  deliver  men ;  and  they  therefore  helped 
to  insure  something  like  peace  and  personal  security 
for  those  quiet,  modest,  and  generally  virtuous  men, 
who,  as  students  of  physical  science,  devoted  their 
lives,  during  the  eighteenth  century,  to  asking  of 
nature — What  are  the  facts  of  the  case  ? 

It  was  no  coincidence,  but  a  connection  of  cause 
and  effect,  that  during  the  century  of  philosojohes 
sound  physical  science  throve,  as  she  had  never  thriven 
.before;  that  in  zoology  and  botany,  chemistry  and 

P  2 


21^  THE   ANCIEN   E:EGIME.  [lect. 

medicine^  geology  and  astronomy^  man  after  man^  both 
of  the  middle  and  the  noble  classes^  laid  down  on  more 
and  more  sounds  because  more  and  more  extended 
foundations,  that  physical  science  which  will  endure 
as  an  everlasting  heritage  to  mankind;  endure^  even 
though  a  second  Byzantine  period  should  reduce  it  to 
a  timid  and  traditional  pedantry_,  or  a  second  irruption 
of  barbarians  sweep  it  away  for  awhile,  to  revive  again 
(as  classic  philosophy  revived  in  the  fifteenth  cen- 
tury) among  new  and  more  energetic  races ;  when  the 
kingdom  of  God  shall  have  been  taken  away  from 
us,  and  given  to  a  nation  bringing  forth  the  fruits 
thereof. 

An  eternal  heritage,  I  say,  for  the  human  race  ; 
which  once  gained,  can  never  be  lost;  which  stands, 
and  will  stand ;  marches,  and  will  march,  proving  its 
growth,  its  health,  its  progressive  force,  its  certainty 
of  final  victory,  by  those  very  changes,  disputes, 
mistakes,  which  the  ignorant  and  the  bigoted  hold  up 
to  scorn,  as  proofs  of  its  uncertainty  and  its  rotten- 
ness ;  because  they  never  have  dared  or  cared  to  ask 
boldly — What  are  the  facts  of  the  case  ? — and  have 
never  discovered  either  the  acuteness,  the  patience, 
the  calm  justice,  necessary  for  ascertaining  the  facts, 
or  their  awful  and  divine  certainty  when  ojice 
ascertained. 

[But  these  philosophers  (it  will  be  said)  hated  all 
religion. 

Before  that  question  can  be  fairly  discussed,  it  is 
surely  right  to  consider  what  form  of  religion  that  was 
which  they  found  working  round  them  in  France,  and 
on  the  greater  part  of  the  Continent.  The  quality 
thereof  may  have  surely  had  something  to  do  (as  they 
themselves  asserted)   with  that  ^^  sort  of  rage  ^^  with 


L 


III.]  THE    EXPLOSIVE   FORCES.  213 

which  (to  use  M.  de  Tocqueville^s  words)  ^^  the  Christian 
religion  was  attacked  in  France/^ 

M.  de  Tocqueville  is  of  opinion  (and  his  opinion 
is  likely  to  be  jnst)  that  *^  the  Church  was  not  more 
open  to  attack  in  France  than  elsewhere ;  that  the 
corruptions  and  abuses  which  had  been  allowed  to 
creep  into  it  were  less,  on  the  contrary,  there  than 
in  most  Catholic  countries.  The  Church  of  France 
was  infinitely  more  tolerant  than  it  ever  had  been 
previously,  and  than  it  still  was  among  other  nations. 
Consequently,  the  peculiar  causes  of  this  phenomenon'^ 
(the  hatred  which  it  aroused)  '^  must  be  looked  for  less 
in  the  condition  of  religion  than  in  that  of  society."*^ 

^^  We  no  longer/^  he  says,  shortly  after,  ^'' ask  in 
what  the  Church  of  that  day  erred  as  a  religious 
institution,  but  how  far  it  stood  opposed  to  the 
political  revolution  which  was  at  hand.''^  And  he  goes 
on  to  show  how  the  principles  of  her  ecclesiastical 
government,  and  her  political  position,  were  such  that 
the  loMlosophes  must  needs  have  been  her  enemies. 
But  he  mentions  another  fact  which  seems  to  me  to 
belong  neither  to  the  category  of  religion  nor  to  that 
of  politics ;  a  fact  which,  if  he  had  done  us  the  honour 
to  enlarge  upon  it,  might  have  led  him  and  his  readers 
to  a  more  true  understanding  of  the  disrepute  into 
which  Christianity  had  fallen  in  France. 

^''The  ecclesiastical  authority  had  been  specially 
employed  in  keeping  watch  over  the  progress  of 
thought;  and  the  censorship  of  books  was  a  daily 
annoyance  to  the  philosophes.  By  defending  the 
common  liberties  of  the  human  mind  against  the 
Church,  they  were  combating  in  their  own  cause :  and 
they  began  by  breaking  the  shackles  which  pressed 
most  closely  on  themselves.''^ 


214  THE  ANCIEN  Rl^GIME.  [lect. 

Just  SO.  And  they  are  not  to  be  blamed  if  tliej 
pressed  first  and  most  earnestly  reforms  wliicli  they 
knew  by  painful  experience  to  be  necessary.  All 
reformers  are  wont  thus  to  begin  at  home.  It  is  to 
their  honour  if^  not  content  with  shaking  off  their 
own  fetters^  they  begin  to  see  that  others  are  fettered 
likewise;  and,  reasoning  from  the  particular  to  the 
universal^  to  learn  that  their  own  cause  is  the  cause 
of  mankind. 

There  is,  therefore,  no  reason  to  doubt  that  these 
men   were   honest,  when   they   said  that   they   were 
combating,  not  in  their  own  cause  merely,  but  in  that 
of  humanity ;  and  that  the  Church  was  combating  in 
her  own  cause,  and  that  of  her  power  and  privilege. 
The  Church  replied  that  she,  too,  was  combating  for 
humanity ;  for  its  moral  and  eternal  well-being.     But 
that  is  just  what  the  jphiloso^phes  denied.     They  said 
(and  it  is  but  fair  to  take  a  statement  which  appears 
on  the  face  of  all  their  writings ;    which  is  the  one 
key-note  on  which  they  ring  perpetual  changes),  that 
the   cause  of   the  Church  in  Prance  was  not  that  of 
humanity,  but  of  inhumanity ;  not  that  of  nature^  but 
of  unnature ;  not  even  that  of  grace,  but  of  disgrace. 
Truely  or  falsely,  they  complained   that   the   French 
clergy  had   not   only  identified  themselves  with  the 
repression  of   free  thought,  and  of    physical  science, 
especially  that  of  the  Newtonian  astronomy,  but  that 
they  had  proved  themselves  utterly  unfit,  for  centuries 
past,  to  exercise  any  censorship  whatsoever  over  the 
thoughts   of    men :    that   they   had   identified   them- 
selves with  the  cause  of  darkness,  not  of  light ;  with 
persecution    and    torture,    with   the    dragonnades    of 
Louis  XIV.,  with  the  murder  of  Calas  and  of  Urban 
Grandier ;  with  celibacy,  hysteria,  demonology,  witch- 


III.]  THE  EXPLOSIVE  FORCES.  215 

crafty  and  the  shameful  public  scandals,  like  those  of 
Gauffredi,  Grandier^  and  Pere  Giraud^  which  had  arisen 
out  of  mental  disease;  with  forms  of  worship  which 
seemed  to  them  (rightly  or  wrongly)  idolatry^  and 
miracles  which  seemed  to  them  (rightly  or  wrongly) 
impostures  ;  that  the  clergy  interfered  perpetually 
with  the  sanctity  of  family  life^  as  well  as  with  the- 
welfare  of  the  state ;  that  their  evil  counsels,,  and 
specially  those  of  the  Jesuits,  had  been  patent  and 
potent  causes  of  much  of  the  misrule  and  misery  of 
Louis  XIV/s  and  XV/s  reigns;  and  that  with  all 
these  heavy  counts  against  them,  their  morality  was 
not  such  as  to  make  other  men  more  moral ;  and  was 
not — at  least  among  the  hierarchy — improving^  or 
likely  to  improve.  To  a  Mazarin,  a  De  Retz,  a 
Richelieu  (questionable  men  enough)  had  succeeded  a 
Dubois,  a  Rohan,  a  Lomenie  de  Brienne,  a  Maury,  a 
Talleyrand;  and  at  the  revolution  of  1789  thoughtful 
Frenchmen  asked,  once  and  for  all,  what  was  to 
be  done  with  a  Church  of  which  these  were  the 
hierophants  ? 

Whether  these  complaints  affected  the  French 
Church  as  a  ^^  religious  ^^  institution,  must  depend 
entirely  on  the  meaning  which  is  attached  to  the 
word  "religion^^ :  that  they  affected  her  on  scientific^ 
rational,  and  moral  grounds,  independent  of  any 
merely  political  one,  is  as  patent  as  that  the  attack 
based  on  them  was  one-sided,  virulent,  and  often 
somewhat  hypocritical,  considering  the  private  morals 
of  many  of  the  assailants.  We  know — or  ought  to 
know — that  within  that  religion  which  seemed  to  the 
vhilosophes  (so  distorted  and  defaced  had  it  become) 
a  nightmare  dream,  crushing  the  life  out  of  mankind, 
there  lie  elements  divine,  eternal;  necessary  for  man 


•216  THE   ANCIEN   Ei^GIME.  [lect. 

in  this  life  and  the  life  to  come.  But  we  are  bound  to 
ask — Had  they  a  fair  chance  of  knowing  what  we 
know  ?  Have  we  proof  that  their  hatred  was  against 
all  religion,  or  only  against  that  which  they  saw 
around  them  ?  Have  we  proof  that  they  would  have 
equally  hated,  had  they  been  in  permanent  contact 
with  them,  creeds  more  free  from  certain  faults  which 
seemed  to  them,  in  the  case  of  the  French  Church, 
ineradicable  and  inexpiable  ?  Till  then  we  must  have 
charity — which  is  justice — even  for  the  ijliilosoplies  of 
the  eighteenth  century. 

This  view  of  the  case  had  been  surely  overlooked 
by  M.  de  Tocqueville,  when  he  tried  to  explain  by  the 
fear  of  revolutions,  the  fact  that  both  in  America  and 
in  England,  "  while  the  boldest  political  doctrines  of 
the  eighteenth-century  philosophers  have  been  adopted, 
their  anti-religious  doctrines  have  made  no  way.''"' 

He  confesses  that,  ^^  Among  the  English,  French 
irreligious  philosophy  had  been  preached,  even  before 
the  greater  part  of  the  French  philosophers  were 
born.  It  was  Bolingbroke  who  set  up  Voltaire. 
Throughout  the  eighteenth  century  infidelity  had 
celebrated  champions  in  England.  Able  writers  and 
profound  thinkers  espoused  that  cause,  but  they  were 
1  never  able  to  render  it  triumphant  as  in  France.''^  Of 
these  facts  there  can  be  no  doubt :  but  the  cause 
which  he  gives  for  the  failure  of  infidelity  will  surely 
sound  new  and  strange  to  those  who  know  the  English 
literature  and  history  of  that  century.  It  was,  he 
says,  ^^  inasmuch  as  all  those  who  had  anything  to  fear 
from  revolutions,  eagerly  came  to  the  rescue  of  the 
established  faith. ^^  Surely  there  was  no  talk  of 
revolutions;  no  wish,  expressed  or  concealed,  to  over- 
throw either  government  or  society,  in  the  aristocratic 


111.]  THE    EXPLOSIVE   FORCES.  217 

clique  to  wliom  English,  infidelity  was  confined.  Such, 
was,  at  least^  the  opinion  of  Voltaire^  who  boasted  that 
^^  All  the  works  of  the  modern  philosophers  together 
would  never  make  as  much  noise  in  the  world  as  was 
made  in  former  days  by  the  disputes  of  the  Cordehers 
about  the  shape  of  their  sleeves  -and  hoods/^  If  (as 
M.  de  Tocqueville  says)  Bolingbroke  set  up  Voltaire, 
neither  master  nor  pupil  had  any  more  leaning  than 
Hobbes  had  toward  a  democracy  which  was  not  dreaded 
in  those  days  because  it  had  never  been  heard  of.  And 
if  (as  M.  de  Tocqueville  heartily  allows)  the  English, 
apologists  of  Christianity  triumphed,  at  least  for  the  time 
being,  the  cause  of  their  triumph  must  be  sought  in 
the  plain  fact  that  such  men  as  Berkeley,  Butler,  and 
Paley,  each  according  to  his  light,  fought  the  battle 
fairly,  on  the  common  ground  of  reason  and  philosophy, 
instead  of  on  that  of  tradition  and  authority ;  and  that 
the  forms  of  Christianity  current  in  England — whether 
Quaker,  Puritan,  or  Anglican — offended,  less  tha^n  that 
current  in  France,  the  common-sense  and  the  human 
instincts  of  the  many,  or  of  the  sceptics  themselves.] 

But  the  eighteenth  century  saw  another  movement, 
all  the  more  powerful,  perhaps,  because  it  was  con- 
tinually changing  its  shape,  even  its  purpose;  and 
gaining  fresh  life  and  fresh  adherents  with  every 
change.  Propagated  at  first  by  men  of  the  school  of 
Locke,  it  became  at  last  a  protest  against  the 
materialism  of  that  school,  on  behalf  of  all  that  is,  or 
calls  itself,  supernatural  and  mysterious.  Abjuring, 
and  honestly,  all  politics,  it  found  itself  sucked  into  the 
political  whirlpool  in  spite  of  itself,  as  all  human 
interests  which  have  any  life  in  them  must  be  at  last. 
It  became  an  active  promoter  of  the  Eevolution ;  then 
it  helped  to  destroy  the  Revolution,  when  that  had. 


218  THE   ANCIEN  RIEGIME.  [lect. 

under  Napoleon^  become  a  levelling  despotism;  tlien 
it  helped,  as  actively,  to  keep  revolutionary  principles 
alive,  after  the  reaction  of  1815  : — a  Protean  institution, 
whose  power  we  in  England  are  as  apt  to  undervalue 
as  the  governments  of  the  Continent  were  apt,  during 
the  eighteenth  centilry,  to  exaggerate  it.  I  mean,  of 
course.  Freemasonry,  and  the  secret  societies  which, 
honestly  and  honourably  disowned  by  Freemasonry, 
yet  have  either  copied  it,  or  actually  sprung  out  of  it. 
In  England,  Freemasonry  never  was,  it  seems,  more 
than  a  liberal  and  respectable  benefit- club ;  for  secret 
societies  are  needless  for  any  further  purposes,  amid 
free  institutions  and  a  free  press.  But  on  the  Continent 
during  the  eighteenth  century.  Freemasonry  excited 
profound  suspicion  and  fear  on  the  part  of  states- 
men who  knew  perfectly  well  their  friends  from  their 
foes ;  and  whose  precautions  were,  from  their  point  of 
view,  justified  by  the  results. 

I  shall  not  enter  into  the  deep  question  of  the 
origin  of  Freemasonry.  One  uninitiate,  as  I  am,  has 
no  right  to  give  an  opinion  on  the  great  questions  of 
the  mediaeval  lodge  of  Kilwinning  and  its  Scotch 
degrees ;  on  the  seven  Templars,  who,  after  poor 
Jacques  Molay  was  burnt  at  Paris,  took  refuge  on  the 
Isle  of  Mull,  in  Scotland,  found  there  another  Templar 
and.  brother  Mason,  ominously  named  Harris ;  took  to 
the  trowel  in  earnest,  and  revived  the  Order ; — on  the- 
Masons  who  built  Magdeburg  Cathedral  in  876 ;  on 
the  English  Masons  assembled  in  Pagan  times  by 
^^  St.  Albone,  that  worthy  knight ;  '^  on  the  revival  of 
English  Masonry  by  Edwin,  son  of  Athelstan ;  on 
Magnus  Grecus,  who  had  been  at  the  building  of 
Solomon^s  Temple,  and  taught  Masonry  to  Charles 
M artel ;    on   the   pillars   Jachin   and   Boaz  ;    on    the 


in.]  THE   EXPLOSIVE   FORCES.  219 

masonry  of  Hiram  of  Tyre,  and  indeed  of  Adam  him- 
self, of  whose  first  fig-leaf  tlie  masonic  apron  may  be 
a  type — on  all  these  matters  I  dare  no  more  decide 
than  on  the  making  of  the  Trojan  Horse,  the  birth  of 
Eomulus  and  Remus,  or  the  incarnation  of  Vishnoo. 

All  I  dare  say  is,  that  Freemasonry  emerges 
in  its  present  form  into  history  and  fact,  seemingly 
about  the  beginning  of  George  I/s  reign, ,  among 
Englishmen  and  noblemen,  notably  in  four  lodges  in 
the  city  of  London :  (1)  at  The  Goose  and  Gridiron 
alehouse  in  St.  PauPs  Churchyard ;  (2)  at  The  Crown 
alehouse  near  Drury  Lane ;  (3)  at  The  Apple  Tree 
tavern  near  C event  Garden  ;  (4)  at  The  Rummer  and 
Grapes  tavern,  in  Charnel  Row,  Westminster.  That 
its  principles  were  brotherly  love  and  good  fellowship, 
which  included  in  those  days  port,  sherry,  claret,  and 
punch ;  that  it  was  founded  on  the  ground  of  mere 
humanity,  in  every  sense  of  the  word ;  being  (as  was 
to  be  expected  from  the  temper  of  the  times)  both 
aristocratic  and  liberal,  admitting  to  its  ranks  virtuous 
gentlemen  ^^  obliged,^^  says  an  old  charge,  ^^  only  to 
that  religion  wherein  all  men  agree,  leaving  their  par- 
ticular opinions  to  themselves  :  that  is,  to  be  good 
men  and  true,  or  men  of  honour  and  honesty,  by 
whatever  ..denominations  or  persuasions  they  may  be 
distinguished ;  whereby  Masonry  becomes  the  centre 
of  union  and  means  of  conciliating  true  friendship 
among  persons  that  otherwise  must  have  remained  at 
a  distance.''^ 

Little  did  the  honest  gentlemen  who  established  or 
re-established  their  society  on  these  grounds,  and 
fenced  it  with  quaint  ceremonies,  old  or  new,  conceive 
the  importance  of  their  own  act ;  we,  looking  at  it  from 
a  distance^  may  see  all  that  such  a  society  involved, 


220  THE   ANCIEN   E^GIME.     -  [lect. 

wliicli  was  quite  new  to  tlie  world  just  then;  and  see^,  that 
it  was  the  very  child  of  the  Ancien  Regime — of  a  time 
when  men  were  growing  weary  of  the  violent  factions^ 
political  and  spiritual,  which  had  torn  Europe  in  pieces 
for  more  than  a  century,  and  longed  to  say :  ^^  After 
all,  we  are  all  alike  in  one  thing — for  we  are  at  least 
men/^ 

Its  spread  through  England  and  Scotland,  and  the 
seceding  bodies  which  arose  from  it,  as  well  as  the 
supposed  Jacobite  tendency  of  certain  Scotch  lodges, 
do  not  concern  us  here.  The  point  interesting  to  us 
just  now  is,  that  Freemasonry  was  imported  to  the 
Continent  exclusively  by  English  and  Scotch  gentle- 
men and  noblemen.  Lord  Derwentwater  is  said  by 
some  to  have  founded  the  '^  Lege  Anglaise  ^'  in  Paris 
in  1725  ;  the  Duke  of  E/ichmond  one  in  his  own  castle 
of  Aubigny  shortly  after.  It  was  through  Hanoverian 
influence  that  the  movement  seems  to  have  spread  into 
Germany.  In  1733,  for  instance,  the  English  Grand 
Master,  Lord  Strathmore,  permitted  eleven  German 
gentlemen  and  good  brethren  to  form  a  lodge  in 
Hamburg.  Into  this  English  Society  was  Frederick 
the  Great,  when  Crown  Prince,  initiated,  in  spite  of 
strict  old  Frederick  William;'s  objections,  who  had 
heard  of  it  as  an  English  invention  of  irreligious 
tendency.  Francis  I.  of  Austria  was  made  a  Free- 
mason at  the  Hague,  Lord  Chesterfield  being  in  the 
chair,  and  then  became  a  Master  in  London  under  the 
name  of  '^  Brother  Lothringen,^^  to  the  discontent  of 
Maria  Theresa,  whose  woman's  wit  saw  farther  than 
her  husband.  Englishmen  and  Scotchmen  introduced 
the  new  society  into  Russia  and  into  Geneva.  Sweden 
and  Poland  seem  to  have  received  it  from  France ; 
while,  in  the  South,  it  seems  to  have  been  exclusively  an 


III.]  THE   EXPLOSIVE   FORCES.  221 

Englisli  plant.  Sackville,  Dake  of  Middlesex,  is  said 
to  have  founded  tlie  first  lodge  at  Florence  in  1733^ 
Lord  Coleraine  at  Gibraltar  and  Madrid,  one  Gordon 
in  Portugal ;  and  everywhere,  at  the  commencement 
of  the  movement,  we  find  either  London  or  Scotland 
the  mother-lodges,  introducing  on  the  Continent  those 
liberal  and  humane  ideas  of  which  England  was  then 
considered,  to  her  glory,  as  the  only  home  left  on 
earth. 

But,  alas  !  the  seed  sown  grew  up  into  strange 
shapes,  according  to  the  soil  in  which  it  rooted.  False 
doctrine,  heresy,  and  schism,  according  to  Herr  Findel, 
the  learned  and  rational  historian  whom  I  have  chiefly 
followed,  defiled  the  new  Church  from  its  infancy. 
^^  Li  France,^^  so  he  bemoans  himself,  ^^  first  of  all 
there  shot  up  that  baneful  seed  of  lies  and  frauds,  of 
vanity  and  presumption,  of  hatred  and  discord,  the 
mischievous  high  degrees ;  the  misstatement  that  our 
order  w^as  allied  to  the  Templars,  and  existed  at  the 
time  of  the  Crusades  ;  the  removal  of  old  charges,  the 
bringing  in  surreptitiously  of  a  multitude  of  symbols 
and  forms  which  awoke  the  love  of  secrecy ;  knight- 
hood ;  and,  in  fact,  all  which  tended  to  poison  Free- 
masonry.^^ Herr  Findel  seems  to  attribute  these  evils 
principally  to  the  ^^high  degrees. ''■'  It  would  have 
been  more  simple  to  have  attributed  them  to  the 
morals  of  the  French  noblesse  in  the  days  of  Louis 
Quinze.  What  could  a  corrupt  tree  bring  forth,  but 
corrupt  fruit  ?  If  some  of  the  early  lodges,  like  those 
of  ^^La  Felicite^^  and  '^L'Ancre,^^  to  which  women 
were  admitted,  resembled  not  a  little  the  Bacchic 
mysteries  of  old  Rome,  and  like  them  called  for  the 
interference  of  the  police,  still  no  great  reform  was  to 
be  expected,  when  those  Sovereign  Masonic  Princes, 


222  THE   ANCIEN  KIEGIME.  [lect. 

the  ^^  Emperors  of  the  East  and  West/^  quarrelled — 
knights  of  the  East  against  knights  of  the  West — till 
they  were  absorbed  or  crushed  by  the  Lodge  ^^  Grand 
Orient/^  with  Philippe  Egalite^  Due  de  Chartres^  as 
their  grand  master,  and  as  his  representative,  the 
hero  of  the  diamond  necklace,  and  disciple  of  Count 
Cagliostro — Louis,  Prince  de  Rohan. 

But  if  Freemasonry,  among  the  frivolous  and 
sensual  French  noblesse,  became  utterly  frivolous  and 
sensual  itself,  it  took  a  deeper,  though  a  questionably 
fantastic  form,  among  the  more  serious  and  earnest 
German  nobility.  Forgetful  as  they  too  often  were  of 
their  duty  to  their  peoples — tyrannical,  extravagant, 
debauched  by  French  opinions,  French  fashions,  French 
luxuries,  till  they  had  begunto  despise  their  native  speech, 
their  native  literature,  almost  their  native  land,  and  to 
hide  their  native  homeliness  under  a  clumsy  varnish  of 
French  outside  civilisation,  which  the  years  1807-13 
rubbed  off  them  again  with  a  brush  of  iron — they  were 
yet  Germans  at  heart ;  and  that  German  instinct  for 
the  unseen — call  it  enthusiasm,  mysticism,  what  you 
will,  you  cannot  make  it  anything  but  a  human  fact, 
and  a  most  powerful,  and  (as  I  hold)  most  blessed  fact 
— that  instinct  for  the  unseen,  I  say,  which  gives 
peculiar  value  to  German  philosophy,  poetry,  art, 
religion,  and  above  all  to  German  family  life,  and 
which  is  just  the  complement  needed  to  prevent  our 
English  common-sense,  matter-of-fact  Lockism  from 
degenerating  into  materialism — that  was  only  lying 
hidden,  but  not  dead,  in  the  German  spirit. 

With  the  Germans,  therefore,  Freemasonry  assumed 
a  nobler  and  more  earnest  shape.  Dropping,  very  soon, 
that  Lockite  and  Fhilosophe  tone  which  had  perhaps 
recommended  it  to  Frederick  the  Great  in  his  youth,  it 


III.]  THE   EXPLOSIVE   FORCES.  223 

became  medisevalist  and  mystic.  It  craved  after  a 
resuscitation  of  old  cMvalrous  spirit,  and  tlie  virtues  of 
tlie  knightly  ideal,  and  tlie  old  German  biederJceit 
und  tapferheit,  which,  were  all  defiled  and  overlaid  by 
French  fopperies.  And  not  in  vain ;  as  no  struggle 
after  a  noble  aim,  however  confused  or  fantastic,  is 
ever  in  vain.  Freemasonry  was  the  direct  parent  of 
the  Tugenbund,  and  of  those  secret  societies  which 
freed  Germany  from  Napoleon.  Whatever  follies  young 
members  of  them  may  have  committed  ;  whatever  Jahn 
and  his  Turnerei ;  whatever  the  iron  youths,  with  their 
iron  decorations  and  iron  boot-heels ;  whatever,  in  a 
word,  may  have  been  said  or  done  amiss,  in  that 
childishness  which  (as  their  own  wisest  writers  often 
lament)  so  often  defaces  the  noble  childlikeness  of  the 
German  pirit,  let  it  be  always  remembered  that  under 
the  impulse  first  given  by  Freemasonry,  as  much  as 
that  given  by  such  heroes  as  Stein  and  Scharnhorst, 
Germany  shook  off  the  chains  which  had  fallen  on  her 
in  her  sleep  ;  and  stood  once  more  at  Leipsic,  were  it 
but  for  a  moment,  a  free  people  alike  in  body  and  in 
soul. 

Eemembering  this,  and  the  solid  benefits  which 
Germany  owed  to  Masonic  influences,  one  shrinks  from 
saying  much  of  the  extravagances  in  which  its  Masonry 
indulged  before  the  French  Revolution.  Yet  they  are 
so  characteristic  of  the  age,  so  significant  to  the 
student  of  human  nature,  that  they  must  be  hinted  at, 
though  not  detailed. 

It  is  clear  that  Masonry  was  at  first  a  movement 
confined  to  the  aristocracy,  or  at  least  to  the  most 
educated  classes ;  and  clear,  too,  that  it  fell  in  with  a 
temper  of  mind  unsatisfied  with  the  dry  dogmatism 
into  which  the  popular  creeds  had  then  been  frozen — 


224  THE   ANCIEX   EEGIME.  [lect. 

unsatisfied  with,  their  own  Frencliified  foppery  and 
pseudo-philosophy — unsatisfied  with  want  of  all  duty, 
purpose,  noble  thought,  or  noble  work.  With,  sucli  a 
temper  of  mind  it  fell  in  :  but  that  very  temper  was 
open  (as  it  always  is)  to  those  dreams  of  a  royal  road 
to  wisdom  and  to  virtue,  which  have  haunted,  in  all 
ages,  the  luxurious  and  the  idle. 

Those  who  will,  may  read  enough,  and  too  much, 
of  the  wonderful  secrets  in  nature  and  science  and 
theosophy,  which  men  expected  to  find  and  did  not  find 
in  the  liigher  degrees  of  Masonry,  till  old  Yoss — the 
translator  of  Homer — had  to  confess,  that  after  "trying 
for  eleven  years  to  attain  a  perfect  knowledge  of  the 
inmost  penetralia,  where  the  secret  is  said  to  be,  and 
of  its  invisible  guardian s,^^  all  he  knew  was  that  "  the 
documents  whicb  he  had  to  make  known  to  the 
initiated  were  nothing  more  than  a  well  got-up  farce.''^ 

But  tlie  mania  was  general.  The  high-born  and 
the  virtuous  expected  to  discover  some  panacea  for 
their  own  consciences  in  what  Voss  calls,  "A  multitude 
of  symbols,  which,  are  ever  increasing  the  farther  you 
penetrate,  and  are  made  to  have  a  moral  application 
through,  some  arbitrary  twisting  of  their  meaning,  as 
if  I  were  to  attempt  expounding  the  chaos  on  my 
writing-desk.^^ 

A  rich,  harvest-field  was  an  aristocracy  in  such  a 
humour,  for  quacks  of  every  kind ;  richer  even  than 
that  of  France,  in  that  the  Germans  were  at  once  more 
honest  and  more  earnest,  and  therefore  to  be  robbed 
more  easily.  The  carcass  was  there  :  and  the  birds  of 
prey  were  gathered  together. 

Of  Rosa,  with  his  lodge  of  the  Three  Hammers, 
and  his  Potsdam  gold-making ; — of  Johnson,  alias 
Leuchte,  who  passed  himself  off  as  a  Grand  Prior  sent 


III.]  THE   EXPLOSIVE   FORCES.  225 

from  Scotland  to  resuscitate  the  order  of  Knights 
Templars ;  who  informed  his  disciples  that  the  Grand 
Master  "Von  Hund  commanded  26^000  men;  that 
round  the  convent  (what  convent,  does  not  appear)  a 
high  wall  was  erected,  which  was  guarded  day  and 
night ;  that  the  English  navy  was  in  the  hands  of  the 
Order;  that  they  had  MSS.  written  by  Hugo  de 
Paganis  (a  mythic  hero  who  often  figures  in  these 
fables) ;  that  their  treasure  was  in  only  three  places 
in  the  world,  in  Ballenstadt,  in  the  icy  mountains  of 
Savoy,  and  in  China  ;  that  whosoever  drew  on  himself 
the  displeasure  of  the  Order,  perished  both  body  and 
soul;  who  degraded  his  rival  Eosa  to  the  sound  of 
military  music,  and  after  having  had,  like  every  dog, 
his  day,  died  in  prison  in  the  Wartburg; — of  the 
Rosicrucians,  who  were  accused  of  wanting  to  support 
and  advance  the  Catholic  religion — one  would  think 
the  accusation  was  very  unnecessary,  seeing  that  their 
actual  dealings  were  with  the  philosopher's  stone,  and 
the  exorcism  of  spirits :  and  that  the  first  apostle  of 
the  new  golden  Rosicrucian  order,  one  Schropfer, 
getting  into  debt,  and  fearing  exposure,  finished  his 
life  in  an  altogether  un-catholic  manner  at  Leipsic  in 
1774,  by  shooting  himself; — of  Keller  and  his  Urim 
and  Thummim  ; — of  Wollner  (who  caught  the  Crown 
Prince  Frederick  William)  with  his  three  names  of 
Chrysophiron,  Heliconus,  and  Ophiron,  and  his  fourth 
name  of  Ormesus  Magnus,  under  which  all  the 
brethren  were  to  offer  up  for  him  solemn  prayers  and 
intercessions ; — of  Baron  Heinrich  von  Ekker  and 
Eckenhofen,  gentleman  of  the  bed-chamber  and  coun- 
sellor of  the  Duke  of  Coburg  Saalfeld,  and  his  Jewish 
colleague  Hirschmann,  with  their  Asiatic  brethren 
and  order  named  Ben  Bicca,  Cabalistic  and  Talmudic  ; 

VOL.  I. — H.  E,  '  Q 


226  THE   ANCIEN  ElEGIME.  [lect. 

of  the  lUuminati,  and  poor  Adam  Weissliaupt^  Pro- 
fessor of  Canon  and  National  Law  at  Ingoldstadt  in 
Bavaria,  wlio  set  up  wliat  he  considered  an  Anti- 
Jesuitical  order  on  a  Jesuit  models  with  some  vague 
hope^  according  to  his  own  showings  of  "perfecting 
the  reasoning  powers  interesting  to  mankind,  spread- 
ing the  knowledge  of  sentiments  both  humane  and 
social,  checking  wicked  inclinations,  standing  up  for 
oppressed  and  suffering  virtue  against  all  wrong,, 
promoting  the  advancement  of  men  of  merit,  and  in 
every  way  facilitating  the  acquirement  of  knowledge 
and  science ;  '^ — of  this  honest  silly  man,  and  his 
attempts  to  carry  out  all  his  fine  projects  by  calling 
himself  Spartacus,  Bavaria  Achaia,  Austria  Egypt, 
Vienna  Rome,  and  so  forth ; — of  Knigge,  who  picked 
his  honest  brains,  quarrelled  with  him,  and  then  made 
money  and  fame  out  of  his  plans,  for  as  long  as  they 
lasted ; —  of  Bode,  the  knight  of  the  lilies  of  the  valley, 
who,  having  caught  Duke  Ernest  of  Saxe  Gotha, 
was  himself  caught  by  Knigge,  and  his  eight,  nine,  or 
more  ascending  orders  of  unwisdom ; — and  finally  of 
the  Jesuits  who,  really  with  considerable  excuses  for 
their  severity,  fell  upon  these  poor  foolish  Illuminati 
in  1784  throughout  Bavaria,  and  had  them  exiled  or 
imprisoned ; — of  all  this  you  may  read  in  the  pages  of 
Dr.  Eindel,  and  in  many  another  book.  For,  for- 
gotten as  they  are  now,  they  made  noise  enough  in 
their  time. 

And  so  it  befell,  that  this  eighteenth  century, 
which  is  usually  held  to  be  the  most  "  materialistic  ^^ 
of  epochs,  was,  in  fact,  a  most  "  spiritualistic  ^'  one  ;  in 
which  ghosts,  demons,  quacks,  philosophers^  stones^^ 
enchanters^  wands,  mysteries  and  mummeries,  were  as 
fashionable — as  they  will  probably  be  again  some  day.. 


III.]  THE   EXPLOSIVE   FOECES.  227 

You  have  all  heard  of  Oagliostro — ^^  pupil  of  the 
sage  Althotas^  foster-child  of  the  Scheriff  of  Mecca^ 
probable  son  of  the  last  king  of  Trebizond;  named 
also  Acharat^  and  ^  Unfortunate  child  of  Nature ;  ^  by 
profession  healer  of  diseases^  abolisher  of  wrinkles^ 
friend  of  the  poor  and  impotent  ;  grand -master 
of  the  Egyptian  Mason-lodge  of  High  Science^ 
spirit- summon er,  gold- cook.  Grand- Cophta,  prophet, 
priest,  Thaumaturgic  moralist,  and  swindler  ^^ — born 
Giuseppe  Balsamo  of  Palermo ; — of  him,  and  of  his 
lovely  Countess  Seraphina — nee  Lorenza  Peliciani  ? 
You  have  read  what  Goethe — and  still  more  important, 
what  Mr.  Carlyle  has  written  on  him,  as  on  one  of  the 
most  significant  personages  of  the  age  ?  Eemember, 
then,  that  Oagliostro  was  no  isolated  phenomenon; 
that  his  success — nay,  his  having  even  conceived  the 
possibility  of  success  in  the  brain  that  lay  within 
that  ^^  brass-faced,  bull-necked,  thick-lipped  ''  head — 
was  made  possible  by  public  opinion.  Had  Oagliostro 
lived  in  our  time,  public  opinion  would  have  pointed 
out  to  him  other  roads  to  honour — on  which  he  would 
doubtless  have  fared  as  well.  For  when  the  silly  dace 
try  to  be  caught  and  hope  to  be  caught,  he  is  a  fooHsh 
pike  who  cannot  gorge  them.  But  the  method  most 
easy  for  a  pike-nature  like  Oagliostro^s,  was  in  the 
eighteenth  century,  as  it  may  be  in  the  latter  half  of 
the  nineteenth,  to  trade,  in  a  materialist  age,  on  the 
unsatisfied  spiritual  cravings  of  mankind.  For  what 
do  all  these  phantasms  betoken,  but  a  generation 
ashamed  of  its  own  materialism,  sensuality,  insincerity, 
ignorance,  and  striving  to  escape  therefrom  by  any 
and  every  mad  superstition  which  seemed  likely  to  give 
an  answer  to  the  awful  questions — What  are  we,  and 
where  ?  and  to  lay  to  rest  those  instincts  of  the  unseen 

Q  2 


228  THE   ANCIEN   REGIME.  [lect. 

and  infinite  around  it^  whicli  tormented  it  like  gliosts 
by  day  and  night  :  a  sight  ladicrous  or  pathetic, 
according  as  it  is  looked  on  by  a  cynical  or  a  human 
spirit. 

It  is  easy  to  call  such  a  phenomenon  absurd,  im- 
probable.    It  is  rather  rational,  probable,  say  certain 
to  happen.     Eational,  I   say;  for  the  reason  of  man 
tells    him,    and   has   always   told   him,    that   he   is    a  , 
supernatural  being,  if  by  nature  is  meant  that  which 
is  cognisable  by  his  five  senses :  that  his  coming  into 
this  world,  his  relation  to  it,  his  exit  from  it — which 
are  the  three  most   important  facts  about  him — are 
supernatural,  not  to  be  explained  by  any  deductions 
from  the  impressions  of  his  senses.     And  I  make  bold 
to  say,  that  the  recent  discoveries  of  physical  science 
— notably  those  of   embryology — go   only  to   justify 
that  old  and  general  belief  of  man.     If  man  be  told 
that  the  microscope  and   scalpel   show  no  difference, 
in  the  first  stage  of  visible  existence,  between  him  and 
the  lower  mammals,  then   he  has  a  right  to  answer 
— as   he   will   answer — So   much   the  worse   for   the 
microscope  and  scalpel :    so  much  the  better  for  my 
old  belief,  that  there  is  beneath  my  birth,  life,  death, 
a    substratum  of   supernatural  causes,  imponderable, 
invisible,  unknowable  by  any  physical  science  whatso- 
ever.    If  you  cannot  render  me  a  reason  how  I  came 
hither,  and  what  I  am,  I  must  go  to  those  who  will 
render  me  one.     And  if  that  craving  be  not  satisfied 
by  a  rational  theory  of  life,  it  will  demand  satisfaction 
from  some  magical  theory ;    as  did  the  mind  of  the 
eighteenth  century  when,  revolting  from  materialism, 
it  fled  to  magic,  to  explain  the  ever-astounding  miracle 
of  life. 

The  old  Eegime.     Will  our  age,  in  its  turn,  ever 


III.]  THE   EXPLOSIVE   FORCES.        .\'y  229^^   ^ 

/' 
be  spoken   of   as  an  old   Eegime  ?     Will  it  ever'li6,y 

spoken  of  as  a  Eegime  at  all ;  as  an  organised^' o^d^rly       / 

system  of  society  and  polity ;    and  not  merely  a/  tj  ,  . 

chaos_,  an  anarchy,,  a  transitory  struggle^  of  which,  the      V 

money-lender  has  been  the  real  guide  and  lord  ? 

But  at  least  it  will  be  spoken  of  as  an  age  of 
progress^  of  rapid  developments^  of  astonishing  dis- 
coveries. 

Are  you  so  sure  of  that  ?  There  was  an  age  of 
progress  once.  But  what  is  our  age — what  is  all 
which  has  befallen  since  1815 — save  after-swells  of 
that  great  storm^  which  are  weakening  and  lulling 
into  heavy  calm  ?  Are  we  on  the  eve  of  stagnation  ? 
Of  a  long  check  to  the  human  intellect  ?  Of  a  new 
Byzantine  era^  in  which  little  men  will  discuss^  and 
ape^  the  deeds  which  great  men  did  in  their  fore- 
fathers^ days  ? 

What  progress — it  is  a  question  which  some  will 
receive  with  almost  angry  surprise — what  progress  has 
the  human  mind  made  since  1815  ? 

If  the  thought  be  startling^  do  me  the  great 
honour  of  taking  it  home^  and  verifying  for  yourselves 
its  truth  or  its  falsehood.  I  do  not  say  that  it  is 
altogether  true.  No  proposition  concerning  human 
things^  stated  so  broadly,  can  be.  But  see  for  your- 
selves, whether  it  is  not  at  least  more  true  than  false ; 
whether  the  ideas,  the  discoveries,  of  which  we  boast 
most  in  the  nineteenth  century,  are  not  really  due  to 
the  end  of  the  eighteenth.  Whether  other  men  did 
not  labour,  and  we  have  only  entered  into  their 
labours.  Whether  our  positivist  spirit,  our  content 
with  the  collecting  of  facts,  our  dread  of  vast  theories, 
is  not  a  symptom — wholesome,  prudent,  modest,  but 
still  a  symptom — of  our  consciousness  that  we  are  not 


230  THE   ANCIEN  EEGIME.  [lect. 

as  our  grandfathers  were;  that  we  can  no  longer 
conceive  great  ideas^  which  illumine^  for  good  or  evil, 
the  whole  mind  and  heart  of  man,  and  drive  him  on  to 
dare  and  suffer  desperately. 

Eailroads  ?  Electric  telegraphs  ?  All  honour  to 
them  in  their  place  :  but  they  are  not  progress ;  they 
are  only  the  fruits  of  past  progress.  No  outward  and 
material  thing  is  progress;  no  machinery  causes 
progress ;  it  merely  spreads  and  makes  popular  the 
results  of  progress.  Progress  is  inward,  of  the  soul. 
And,  therefore,  improved  constitutions,  and  improved 
book  instruction — now  miscalled  education — are  not 
progress :  they  are  at  best  only  fruits  and  signs 
thereof.  For  they  are  outward,  material;  and  progress, 
I  say,  is  inward.  The  self-help  and  self-determination 
of  the  independent  soul — that  is  the  root  of  progress  ; 
and  the  more  human  beings  who  have  that,  the  more 
progress  there  is  in  the  world.  Give  me  a  man  who, 
though  he  can  neither  read  nor  write,  yet  dares  think 
for  himself,  and  do  the  thing  he  believes:  that  man 
will  help  forward  the  human  race  more  than  any 
thousand  men  who  have  read,  or  written  either,  a 
thousand  books  apiece,  but  have  not  dared  to  think 
for  themselves.  And  better  for  his  race,  and  better, 
I  believe,  in  the  sight  of  God,  the  confusions  and 
mistakes  of  that  one  sincere  brave  man,  than  the 
second-hand  and  cowardly  correctness  of  all  the 
thousand. 

As  for  the  "  triumphs  of  science,^^  let  us  honour, 
with  astonishment  and  awe,  the  genius  of  those  who 
invented  them ;  but  let  us  remember  that  the  things 
themselves  are  as  a  gun  or  a  sword,  with  which  we  can 
kill  our  enemy,  but  with  which  also  our  enemy  can 
kill  us.     Like  all  outward  and  material  things,  they 


III.]  THE   EXPLOSIVE   EOECES.  231 

are  equally  fit  for  good  and  for  evil.  In  England  liere 
— they  have  been  as  yet,  as  far  as  I  can  see,  nothing, 
but  blessings :  but  I  have  my  very  serious  doubts 
whether  they  are  likely  to  be  blessings  to  the  whole 
human  race,  for  many  an  age  to  come.  I  can  conceive 
them — may  God  avert  the  omen  ! — the  instruments  of 
a  more  crushing  executive  centralisation,  of  a  more 
utter  oppression  of  the  bodies  and  souls  of  men,  than 
the  world  has  yet  seen.  I  can  conceive — may  God 
avert  the  omen  ! — centuries  hence,  some  future  world- 
ruler  sitting  at  the  junction  of  all  railroads,  at  the 
centre  of  all  telegraph-wires — a  world- spider  in  the 
omphalos  of  his  world-wide  web ;  and  smiting  from 
thence  everything  that  dared  to  lift  its  head,  or  utter 
a  cry  of  pain,  with  a  swiftness  and  surety  to  which 
the  craft  of  a  Justinian  or  a  Philip  II.  were  but  clumsy 
and  impotent. 

All,  all  outward  things,  be  sure  of  it,  are  good  or 
evil,  exactly  as  far  as  they  are  in  the  hands  of  good 
men  or  of  bad. 

Moreover,  paradoxical  as  it  may  seem,  railroads 
and  telegraphs,  instead  of  inaugurating  an  era  of 
progress,  may  possibly  only  retard  it.  "  Hester  sur  un 
grand  succes,^^  which  was  Eossini^s  advice  to  a  young 
singer  who  had  achieved  a  triumph,  is  a  maxim  which 
the  world  often  follows,  not  only  from  prudence,  but 
from  necessity.  They  have  done  so  much  that  it 
seems  neither  prudent  nor  possible  to  do  more.  They 
will  rest  and  be  thankful. 

Thus,  gunpowder  and  printing  made  rapid  changes 
enough;  but  those  changes  had  no  further  develop- 
ment. The  new  art  of  war,  the  new  art  of  literature, 
remained  stationary,  or  rather  receded  and  degenerated, 
till  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century. 


232  THE   ANCIEN  KEGIME.  [lect. 

And  so  it  may  be  witli  our  means  of  locomotion 
^nd  intercommunion^,  and  wliat  depends  on  tliem.  The 
vast  and  unprecedented  amount  of  capital,  of  social 
interest,  of  actual  human  intellect  invested — I  may 
say  locked  up — in  these  railroads,  and  telegraphs,  and 
other  triumphs  of  industry  and  science,  will  not  enter 
into  competition  against  themselves.  They  will  not 
set  themselves  free  to  seek  new  discoveries  in  directions 
which  are  often  actually  opposed  to  their  own,  always 
foreign  to  it.  If  the  money  of  thousands  are  locked 
up  in  these  great  works,  the  brains  of  hundreds  of 
thousands,  and  of  the  very  shrewdest  too,  are  equally 
locked  up  therein  likewise ;  and  are  to  be  subtracted 
from  the  gross  material  of  social  development,  and 
added  (without  personal  fault  of  their  owners,  who 
may  be  very  good  men)  to  the  dead  weight  of  vested 
selfishness,  ignorance,  and  dislike  of  change. 

Yes.  A  Byzantine  and  stationary  age  is  possible 
yet.  Perhaps  we  are  now  entering  upon  it ;  an  age 
in  which  mankind  shall  be  satisfied  with  the  ^^  triumphs 
of  science,^^  and  shall  look  merely  to  the  greatest 
comfort  (call  it  not  happiness)  of  the  greatest  number ; 
and  like  the  debased  Jews  of  old,  "  having  found  the 
life  of  their  hand,  be  therewith  content,^^  no  matter  in 
what  mud-hole  of  slavery  and  superstition. 

But  one  hope  there  is,  and  more  than  a  hope — one 
certainty,  that  however  satisfied  enlightened  public 
opinion  may  become  with  the  results  of  science,  and 
the  progress  of  the  human  race,  there  will  be  always  a 
more  enlightened  private  opinion  or  opinions,  which 
will  not  be  satisfied  therewith  at  all;  a  few  men  of 
genius,  a  few  children  of  light,  it  may  be  a  few  perse- 
cuted, and  a  few  martyrs  for  new  truths,  who  will  wish 
the  world  not  to  rest  and  be  thankful,  but  to  be  dis- 


III.]  THE    EXPLOSIVE  FORCES.  233 

contented  with  itself,  ashamed  of  itself,  striving  and 
toiling  upward,  without  present  hope  of  gain,  till  it 
has  reached  that  unknown  goal  which  Bacon  saw 
afar  off,  and  like  all  other  heroes,  died  in  faith,  not 
having  received  the  promises,  but  seeking  still  a  polity 
which  has  foundations,  whose  builder  and  maker  is 
God. 

These  will  be  the  men  of  science,  whether  physical 
or  spiritual.  Not  merely  the  men  who  utilise  and 
apply  that  which  is  known  (useful  as  they  plainly 
are),  but  the  men  who  themselves  discover  that  which 
was  unknown,  and  are  generally  deemed  useless,  if  not 
hurtful,  to  their  race.  They  will  keep  the  sacred  lamp 
burning  unobserved  in  quiet  studies,  while  all  the 
world  is  gazing  only  at  the  gaslights  flaring  in  the 
street.  They  will  pass  that  lamp  on  from  hand  to 
hand,  modestly,  almost  stealthily,  till  the  day  comes 
round  again,  when  the  obscure  student  shall  be  dis- 
covered once  more  to  be,  as  he  has  always  been,  the 
strongest  man  on  earth.  For  they  follow  a  mistress 
whose  footsteps  may  often  slip,  yet  never  fall ;  for  she 
walks  forward  on  the  eternal  facts  of  Nature,  which 
are  the  acted  will  of  God.  A  giantess  she  is  ;  young 
indeed,  but  humble  as  yet :  cautious  and  modest  beyond 
her  years.  She  is  accused  of  trying  to  scale  Olympus, 
by  some  who  fancy  that  they  have  already  scaled  it 
themselves,  and  will,  of  course,  brook  no  rival  in  their 
fancied  monopoly  of  wisdom. 

The  accusation,  I  believe,  is  unjust.  And  yet 
science  may  scale  Olympus  after  all.  Without  in- 
tending it,  almost  without  knowing  it,  she  may  find 
herself  hereafter  upon  a  summit  of  which  she  never 
dreamed ;  surveying  the  universe  of  God  in  the  light 
of  Him  who  made  it  and  her,  and  remakes  them  both 


234  THE   ANCIEN   REGIME.  [lect.  iii. 

for  ever  and  ever.  On  tliat  summit  slie  may  stand 
Hereafter,  if  only  she  goes  on,  as  she  goes  now,  in 
humility  and  in  patience ;  doing  the  duty  which  lies 
nearest  her;  lured  along  the  upward  road,  not  by 
ambition,  vanity,  or  greed,  but  by  reverent  curiosity 
for  every  new  pebble,  and  flower,  and  child,  and  savage, 
around  her  feet. 


^ 


A  R  Y 
CALl  KO  UNI  A. 


.=^ 


THE    FIEST    DISCOVEEY    OF    AMERICA. 


THE  FIRST  DISCOVERY  OF  AMERICA. 


Let  me  begin  this  lecture*  with,  a  scene  in  the  North 
Atlantic  863  years  since. 

^^  Bjarne  Grimolfson  was  blown  with  his  ship  into 
the  Irish  Ocean;  and  there  came  worms  and  the  ship 
began  to  sink  under  them.  They  had  a  boat  which 
they  had  payed  with  seals^  blubber,  for  that  the  sea- 
worms  will  not  hurt.  But  when  they  got  into  the  boat 
they  saw  that  it  would  not  hold  them  all.  Then  said 
Bjarne,  ^As  the  boat  will  only  hold  the  half  of  us, 
my  advice  is  that  we  should  draw  lots  who  shall  go  in 
her;  for  that  will  not  be  unworthy  of  our  manhood.^ 
This  advice  seemed  so  good  that  none  gainsaid  it; 
and  they  drew  lots.  And  the  lot  fell  to  Bjarne  that 
he  should  go  in  the  boat  with  half  his  crew.  But  as 
he  got  into  the  boat,  there  spake  an  Icelander  who 
was  in  the  ship  and  had  followed  Bjarne  from  Iceland, 
^Art  thou  going  to  leave  me  here,  Bjarne?^  Quoth 
Bjarne,  ^  So  it  must  be.^  Then  said  the  man,  ^Another 
thing  didst  thou  promise  my  father,  when  I  sailed  with 
thee  from  Iceland,  than  to  desert  me  thus.  For  thou 
saidst  that  we  both  should  share  the  same  lot.^  Bjarne 
said,  ^  And  that  we  will  not  do.  Get  thou  down  into 
the  boat,  and  I  will  get  up  into  the  ship,  now  I  see 

*  This  lecture  was  delivered  in  America  in  1874. 


238  THE   FIRST  DISCOVERY   OF   AMERICA. 

tliat  thoa  art  so  greedy  after  life/  So  Bjariie  went  up 
into  the  sMp,  and  tlie  man  went  down  into  tlie  boat ; 
and  the  boat  went  on  its  voyage  till  they  came  to 
Dublin  in  Ireland.  Most  men  say  that  Bjarne  and 
his  comrades  perished  among  the  worms ;  for  they 
were  never  heard  of  after.^^ 

This  story  may  serve  as  a  text  for  my  whole  lecture. 
Not  only  does  it  smack  of  the  sea-breeze  and  the  salt 
water^  like  all  the  finest  old  Norse  sagas_,  but  it  gives 
a  glimpse  at  least  of  the  nobleness  which  underlay  the 
grim  and  often  cruel  nature  of  the  Norseman.  It 
belongs^  too,  to  the  culminating  epoch_,  to  the  begin- 
ning of  that  era  when  the  Scandinavian  peoples  had 
their  great  times ;  when  the  old  fierceness  of  the 
worshippers  of  Thor  and  Odin  was  tempered,  without 
being  effeminated,  by  the  Faith  of  the  ^^  White  Christ/^ 
till  the  very  men  who  had  been  the  destroyers  of 
Western  Europe  became  its  civilisers. 

It  should  have,  moreover,  a  special  interest  to 
Americans.  For — as  American  antiquaries  are  well 
aware — Bjarne  was  on  his  voyage  home  from  the  coast 
of  New  England ;  possibly  from  that  very  Mount  Hope 
Bay  which  seems  to  have  borne  the  same  name  in  the 
time  of  those  old  Norsemen,  as  afterwards  in  the  days 
of  King  Philip,  the  last  sachem  of  the  Wampanong 
Indians.  He  was  going  back  to  Greenland,  perhaps  for 
reinforcements,  finding,  he  and  his  fellow- captain, 
Thorfinn,  the  Esquimaux  who  then  dwelt  in  that  land 
too  strong  for  them.  For  the  Norsemen  were  then  on 
the  very  edge  of  discovery,  which  might  have  changed 
the  history  not  only  of  this  continent  but  of  Europe 
likewise.  They  had  found  and  colonised  Iceland  and 
Greenland.  They  had  found  Labrador,  and  called  it 
Helluland,   from   its   ice-polished   rocks.      They    had 


THE   riEST   DISCOVERY   OF   AMERICA.  239 

found  Nova  Scotia  seemingly^  and  called  it  Markland^ 
from  its  woods.  They  had  found  New  England^  and 
called  it  Yinland  the  Good.  A  fair  land  they  found  it, 
well  wooded,  with  good  pasturage ;  so  that  they  had 
already  imported  cows,  and  a  bull  whose  lowings 
terrified  the  Esquimaux.  They  had  found  self-sown 
corn  too,  probably  maize.  The  streams  were  full  of 
salmon.  But  they  had  called  the  land  Vinland,  by 
reason  of  its  grapes.  Quaint  enough,  and  bearing  in 
its  very  quaintness  the  stamp  of  truth,  is  the  story  of 
the  first  finding  of  the  wild  fox-grapes.  How  Leif  the 
Fortunate,  almost  as  soon  as  he  first  landed,  missed  a 
little  wizened  old  German  servant  of  his  father^s, 
Tyrker  by  name,  and  was  much  vexed  thereat,  for  he 
had  been  brought  up  on  the  old  man^s  knee,  and 
hurrying  off  to  find  him  met  Tyrker  coming  back 
twisting  his  eyes  about — a  trick  of  his — smacking  his 
lips  and  talking  German  to  himself  in  high  excitement. 
And  when  they  get  him  to  talk  Norse  again,  he  says ; 
^^  I  have  not  been  far,  but  I  have  news  for  you.  I 
have  found  vines  and  grapes  !  ^^  "  Is  that  true,  foster- 
father?^^  says  Leif.  ^^True  it  is,^^  says  the  old 
German,  ^^  f  or  I  was  brought  up  where  there  was 
never  any  lack  of  them.^^ 

The  saga — as  given  by  Eafn — had  a  detailed  de- 
scription of  this  quaint  personage's  appearance;  and  it 
would  not  be  amiss  if  American  wine-growers  should 
employ  an  American  sculptor — and  there  are  great 
American  sculptors — to  render  that  description  into 
marble,  and  set  up  little  Tyrker  in  some  public  place, 
as  the  Silenus  of  the  New  World. 

Thus  the  first  cargoes  homeward  from  Vinland  to 
Greenland  had  been  of  timber  and  of  raisins,  and  of 
vine-stocks,  which  were  not  like  to  thrive. 


240  THE   FIRST   DISCOVERY   OF   AMERICA. 

And  more.  Beyond  Vinland  the  Good  there  was 
said  to  be  another  land,  Whiteman^s  Land — or  Ireland 
the  Mickle,  as  sorae  called  it.  For  these  Norse  traders 
from  Limerick  had  found  Ari  Marson,  and  Ketla  of 
Euykjanes,  supposed  to  have  been  long  since  drowned 
at  sea,  and  said  that  the  people  had  made  him  and 
Ketla  chiefs,  and  baptized  Ari.  What  is  all  this  ?  and 
what  is  this,  too,  which  the  Esquimaux  children  taken 
inMarkland  told  the  Northmen,  of  aland  beyond  them 
where  the  folk  wore  white  clothes,  and  carried  flags  on 
poles  ?  Are  these  all  dreams  ?  or  was  some  part  of 
that  great  civilisation,  the  relics  whereof  your  anti- 
quarians find  in  so  many  parts  of  the  United  States,  still 
in  existence  some  900  years  ago ;  and  were  these  old 
Norse  cousins  of  ours  upon  the  very  edge  of  it  ?  Be 
that  as  it  may,  how  nearly  did  these  fierce  Vikings, 
some  of  whom  seemed  to  have  sailed  far  south  along 
the  shore,  become  aware  that  just  beyond  them  lay  a 
land  of  fruits  and  spices,  gold  and  gems  ?  The  adverse 
current  of  the  Gulf  Stream,  it  may  be,  would  have 
long  prevented  their  getting  past  the  Bahamas  into 
the  Gulf  of  Mexico  ;  but,  sooner  or  later,  some  storm 
must  have  carried  a  Greenland  viking  to  San  Domingo 
or  to  Cuba ;  and  then,  as  has  been  well  said,  some 
Scandinavian  dynasty  might  have  sat  upon  the  throne 
of  Mexico. 

These  stories  are  well  known  to  antiquarians.  They 
may  be  found,  almost  all  of  them,  in  Professor  Eafn^s 
^^Antiquitates  AmericanaB.''^  The  action  in  them  stands 
out  often  so  clear  and  dramatic,  that  the  internal 
evidence  of  historic  truth  is  irresistible.  Thorvald, 
who,  when  he  saw  what  seems  to  be,  they  say,  the 
bluff  head  of  Alderton  at  the  south-east  end  of  Boston 
Bay,  said,  "  Here  should  I  like  to  dwell/'  and,  shot  loj 


THE   FIRST    DISCOVERY   OF  AMERICA.  241 

an  Esquimaux  arrow^  bade  bury  bim  on  that  place^ 
witb  a  cross  at  his  head  and  a  cross  at  bis  feet^  and  call 
the  place  Cross  Ness  for  evermore;  Gudrida^  the  mag- 
nificent widow^  who  wins  hearts  and  sees  strange  deeds 
from  Iceland  to  Greenland^  and  Greenland  to  Vinland 
and  back,  and  at  last,  worn  out  and  sad,  goes  off  on  a 
pilgrimage  to  Eome ;  Helgi  and  Finnbogi,  the  Nor- 
wegians, who,  like  our  Arctic  voyagers  in  after  times, 
devise  all  sorts  of  sports  and  games  to  keep  the  men 
in  humour  during  the  long  winter  at  Hope  ;  and  last, 
but  not  least,  the  terrible  Preydisa,  who,  when  the 
Norse  are  seized  with  a  sudden  panic  at  the  Esquimaux 
and  flee  from  them,  as  they  had  three  weeks  before 
fled   from  Thorfinn^s   bellowing  bull,  turns,  when   so 
weak  that  she  cannot   escape,   single-handed  on  the 
savages,  and  catching  up  a  slain   man^s  sword,  puts 
tbem  all  to  flight  with  her  fierce  visage  and  fierce  cries 
■ — Freydisa  the  Terrible,  who,  in  another  voyage,  per- 
suades her  husband  to  fall  on  Helgi  and  Finnbogi, 
when  asleep,  and  murder  them  and  all  their  men ;  and 
then,  when  be  will  not  murder  the  five  women  too, 
takes   up    an   axe   and   slays    them   all    herself,    and 
getting  back  to  Greenland,  when  the  dark  and  unex- 
plained tale  comes  out,  lives  unpunished,  but  abhorred 
henceforth.      All   these   folks,    I    say,    are   no   phan- 
toms, but  realities ;  at  least,  if  I  can  judge  of  internal 
evidence. 

But  beyond  them,  and  hovering  on  the  verge  of 
Mythus  and  Fairyland,  there  is  a  ballad  called  ^^  Finn 
the  Fair,^'  and  how 

An  upland  Earl  had  twa  braw  sons, 

My  story  to  begin ; 
The  tane  was  bight  Haldane  the  strong, 
The  tither  was  winsome  Finn. 
VOL.  I. — H.  E.  B 


242  THE   FIRST  DISCOVEEY  OF   AMERICA. 

and  so  forth;  wliich  was  still  sung,  with  other  ^^rimur/^ 
or  ballads,  in  the  Faroes,  at  the  end  of  the  last  century. 
Professor  Rafn  has  inserted  it,  because  it  talks  of 
Vinland  as  a  well-known  place,  and  because  the  brothers 
are  sent  by  the  princess  to  slay  American  kings  ;  but 
that  Rime  has  another  value.  It  is  of  a  beauty  so 
perfect,  and  yet  so  like  the  old  Scotch  ballads  in  its 
heroic  conception  of  love,  and  in  all  its  forms  and  its 
qualities,  that  it  is  one  proof  more,  to  any  student  of 
early  European  poetry,  that  we  and  these  old  Norsemen 
are  men  of  the  same  blood. 

If  anything  more  important  than  is  told  by  Profess  or 
Rafn  and  Mr.  Black*  be  now  known  to  the  antiquarians 
of  Massachusetts,  let  me  entreat  them  to  pardon  my 
ignorance.  But  let  me  record  my  opinion  that,  though 
somewhat  too  much  may  have  been  made  in  past  years 
of  certain  rock-inscriptions,  and  so  forth,  on  this  side 
of  the  Atlantic,  there  can  be  no  reasonable  doubt  that 
our  own  race  landed  and  tried  to  settle  on  the  shore 
of  New  England  six  hundred  years  before  their  kins- 
men, and,  in  many  cases,  their  actual  descendants,  the 
august  Pilgrim  Fathers  of  the  seventeenth  century. 
And  so,  as  I  said,  a  Scandinavian  dynasty  might  have 
been  seated  now  upon  the  throne  of  Mexico.  And 
how  was  that  sti^ange  chance  lost  ?  First,  of  course, 
by  the  length  and  danger  of  the  coasting  voyage.  It 
was  one  thing  to  have,  like  Columbus  and  Vespucci, 
Cortes  and  Pizarro,  the  Azores  as  a  halfway  port; 
another  to  have  Greenland,  or  even  Iceland.  It  was 
one  thing  to  run  south-west  upon  Columbus^ s  track, 
across  the  Mar  de  Damas,  the  Ladies^  Sea,  which  hardly 
knows  a  storm,  with  the  blazing  blue  above,  the  blazing 

*  Black,  translator  of  Mallett's  "Northern  Antiquities,"  Supple- 
mentary Chapter  I.,  and  Eafn's  "Antiquitates  Americanae." 


THE   FIRST   DISCOVERY   OF  AMERICA.  243 

Mue  below,  in  an  ever- warming  climate,  wliere  every 
breath  is  life  and  joy;  another  to  struggle  against  the 
fogs  and  icebergs,  the  rocks  and  currents  of  the  dreary 
North  Atlantic.  No  wonder,  then,  that  the  knowledge 
of  Markland,  and  Vinland,  and  Whiteman^s  Land  died 
away  in  a  few  generations,  and  became  but  fireside 
«agas  for  the  winter  nights. 

But  there  were  other  causes,  more  honourable  to 
the  dogged  energy  of  the  Norse.  They  were  in  those 
very  years  conquering  and  settling  nearer  home  as  no 
other  people — unless,  perhaps,  the  old  Ionian  Greeks 
— conquered  and  settled. 

Greenland,  we  have  seen,  they  held — the  western 
«ide  at  least — and  held  it  long  and  well  enough  to 
afford,  it  is  said,  2,600  pounds  of  walrus^  teeth  as 
yearly  tithe  to  the  Pope,  besides  Peter^s  pence,  and 
to  build  many  a  convent,  and  church,  and  cathedral, 
with  farms  and  homesteads  round ;  for  one  saga 
speaks  of  Greenland  as  producing  wheat  of  the  finest 
quality.  All  is  ruined  now,  perhaps  by  gradual  change 
of  climate. 

But  they  had  richer  fields  of  enterprise  than 
Greenland,  Iceland,  and  the  Faroes.  Their  boldest 
outlaws  at  that  very  time — whether  from  Norway, 
Sweden,  Denmark,  or  Britain — were  forming  the 
imperial  life-guard  of  the  Byzantine  Emperor,  as 
the  once  famous  Varangers  of  Constantinople;  and 
that  splendid  epoch  of  their  race  was  just  dawning, 
of  which  my  lamented  friend,  the  late  Sir  Bdmiind 
Head,  says  so  well  in  his  preface  to  Viga  Glumes 
Icelandic  Saga,  ^^The  Sagas,  of  which  this  tale  is 
one,  were  composed  for  the  men  who  have  left  their 
mark  in  every  corner  of  Europe ;  and  whose  language 
.and  laws  are  at  this  moment  important  elements  in  the 

R  2 


244  THE   FIRST   DISCOVERY   OF  AMERICA. 

speech  and  institutions  of  England,  America,  and 
Australia.  There  is  no  page  of  modern  history  in 
which  the  influence  of  the  Norsemen  and  their 
conquests  must  not  be  taken  into  account — Russia, 
Constantinople,  Greece,  Palestine,  Sicily,  the  coasts 
of  Africa,  Southern  Italy,  France,  the  Spanish  Penin- 
sula, England,  Scotland,  Ireland,  and  every  rock  and 
island  round  them,  have  been  visited,  and  most  of 
them  at  one  time  or  the  other  ruled,  by  the  men  of 
Scandinavia.  The  motto  on  the  sword  of  Roger 
Guiscard  was  a  proud  one : 

Appulus  et  Calaber,  Sicalus  mihi  servit  et  Afer." 

Every  island,  says  Sir  Edmund  Head,  and  truly — 
for  the  name  of  almost  every  island  on  the  coast 
of  England,  Scotland,  and  Eastern  Ireland,  ends  in 
either  ey  or  ay  or  oe,  a  Norse  appellative,  as  is  the 
word  ^'^ island'^  itself — is  a  mark  of  its  having  been, 
at  some  time  or  other,  visited  by  the  Vikings  of 
Scandinavia. 

Norway,  meanwhile,  was  convulsed  by  war;  and 
what  perhaps  was  of  more  immediate  consequence, 
Svend  Fork-beard,  whom  we  Englishmen  call  Sweyn 
- — the  renegade  from  that  Christian  Faith  which  had 
been  forced  on  him  by  his  German  conqueror,  the 
Emperor  Ofcto  II. — with  his  illustrious  son  Cnut, 
whom  we  call  Canute,  were  just  calling  together  all 
the  most  daring  spirits  of  the  Baltic  coasts  for  the 
subjugation  of  England ;  and  when  that  great  feat 
was  performed,  the  Scandinavian  emigration  was 
paralysed,  probably,  for  a  time  by  the  fearful  wars 
at  home.  While  the  king  of  Sweden,  and  St.  Olaf 
Tryggvason,  king  of  Norway,  were  setting  on  Den- 
mark during  Cnut^s  pilgrimage  to  Rome,  and  Cnut^ 


THE   FIRST   DISCOVERY   OF  AMERICA.  245 

sailing  with  a  mighty  fleet  to  Norway,  was  driving 
St.  Olaf  into  E/Ussia,  to  return  and  fall  in  the  fratri- 
cidal battle  of  Stiklestead — during,  strangely  enough, 
a  total  eclipse  of  the  sun — Vinland  was  like  enough 
to  remain  still  uncolonised.  After  Cnut^s  short-lived 
triumph — king  as  he  was  of  Denmark,  Norway, 
England,  and  half  Scotland,  and  what  not  of  Wen  dish 
Folk  inside  the  Baltic — the  force  of  the  Norsemen 
seems  to  have  been  exhausted  in  their  native  lands. 
Once  more  only,  if  I  remember  right,  did  '^  Lochlin," 
really  and  hopefully  send  forth  her  ^^  mailed  swarm  ^^ 
to  conquer  a  foreign  land;  and  with  a  result  un- 
expected alike  by  them  and  by  their  enemies.  Had 
it  been  otherwise,  we  might  not  have  been  here  this 
day. 

Let  me  sketch  for  you  once  more — though  you 
have  heard  it,  doubtless,  many  a  time — the  tale  of 
that  tremendous  fortnight  which  settled  the  fate  of 
Britain,  and  therefore  of  North  America;  which 
decided — just  in  those  great  times  when  the  decision 
was  to  be  made — whether  we  should  be  on  a  par  with 
the  other  civilised  nations  of  Europe,  like  them  the 
^^  heirs  of  all  the  ages,^^  with  our  share  not  only  of 
Eoman  Christianity  and  Roman  centralisation — a 
member  of  the  great  comity  of  European  nations,, 
held  together  in  one  Christian  bond  by  the  Pope — 
but  heirs  also  of  Roman  civilisation,  Roman  literature, 
Roman  Law;  and  therefore,  in  due  time,  of  Greek 
philosophy  and  art.  No  less  a  question  than  this,  it 
seems  to  me,  hung  in  the  balance  during  that  fort- 
night of  autumn,  1066. 

Poor  old  Edward  the  Confessor,  holy,  weak,  and 
sad,  lay  in  his  new  choir  of  Westminster — where  the 
wicked  ceased  from  troubling,  and  the  weary  were  at 


246  THE   FIRST   DISCOVERY   OF   AMERICA. 

rest.  The  crowned  ascetic  liad  left  no  lieir  behind. 
England  seemed  as  a  corpse^  to  wHcli  all  the  eagles 
might  gather  together;  and  the  South -English,  in 
their  utter  need_,  had  chosen  for  their  king  the  ablest, 
and  it  may  be  the  justest,  man  in  Britain — Earl 
Harold  Godwinsson :  himself,  like  half  the  upper 
classes  of  England  then,  of  the  all-dominant  Norse 
blood ;  for  his  mother  was  a  Danish  princess.  Then 
out  of  Norway,  with  a  mighty  host,  came  Harold 
Hardraade,  taller  than  all  men,  the  ideal  Viking  of 
his  time.  Half-brother  of  the  now  dead  St.  Olaf, 
severely  wounded  when  he  was  but  fifteen,  at  Stikle- 
stead,  when  Olaf  fell,  he  had  warred  and  plundered  on 
many  a  coast.  He  had  been  away  to  Russia  to  King 
Jaroslaf  j  he  had  been  in  the  Emperor^s  Varanger 
guard  at  Constantinople — and,  it  was  whispered, 
had  slain  a  lion  there  with  his  bare  hands;  he  had 
carved  his  name  and  his  comrades^  in  Runic  cha- 
racters— if  you  go  to  Venice  you  may  see  them  at  this 
day — on  the  loins  of  the  great  marble  lion,  which 
stood  in  his  time  not  in  Venice  but  in  Athens.  And 
now,  king  of  Norway  and  conqueror,  for  the  time,  of 
Denmark,  why  should  he  not  take  England,  as  Sweyn 
and  Canute  took  it  sixty  years  before,  when  the 
flower  of  the  English  gentry  perished  at  the  fatal 
battle  of  Assingdune  ?  If  he  and  his  half -barbarous 
host  had  conquered,  the  civilisation  of  Britain  would 
have  been  thrown  back,  perhaps,  for  centuries.  But 
it  was  not  to  be. 

England  was  to  be  conquered  by  the  Norman; 
but  by  the  civilised,  not  the  barbaric ;  by  the  Norse 
who  had  settled,  but  four  generations  before,  in  the 
North  East  of  France  under  Ron,  RoUo,  Rolf  the- 
Ganger — so-called,  they  say,  because  his  legs  were  sa 


THE   FIEST   DISCOYERY   OF   AMEEICA.  247 

long  that,,  when  on  horseback^  lie  touclied  tlie  ground 
and  seemed  to  gang^  or  walk.  He  and  his  Norsemen 
liad  taken  tlieir  share  of  France^  and  called  it  Nor- 
mandy to  this  day;  and  meanwhile^  with  that  docility 
and  adaptability  which  marks  so  often  truly  great 
spirits^  they  had  changed  their  creed,  their  language^ 
their  habits,,  and  had  become^  from  heathen  and 
murderous  Berserkers^  the  most  truly  civilised  people 
of  Europe^  and — as  was  most  natural  then — the  most 
faithful  allies  and  servants  of  the  Pope  of  Rome.  So 
greatly  had  they  changed^  and  so  fast,  that  William 
Duke  of  Normandy^  the  great-great-grandson  of  Rolf 
the  wild  Viking,  was  perhaps  the  finest  gentleman,  as 
well  as  the  most  cultivated  sovereign^  and  the  greatest 
statesman  and  warrior  in  all  Europe. 

So  Harold  of  Norway  came  with  all  his  Vikings 
to  Stamford  Bridge  by  York;  and  took,  by  coming, 
only  that  which  Harold  of  England  promised  him, 
namely,  ^^  forasmuch  as  he  was  taller  than  any  other 
man,  seven  feet  of  English  ground. ^^ 

The  story  of  that  great  battle,  told  with  a  few 
inaccuracies,  but  told  as  only  great  poets  tell,  you 
should  read,  if  you  have  not  read  it  already,  in  the 
^^Heimskringla^^  of  Snorri  Sturluson,  the  Homer  of 
the  North  : 

High  feast  that  day  held  the  birds  of  the  air  and 
the  beasts  of  the  field, 
White-tailed  erne  and  sallow  glede, 
Dusky  raven,  with  horny  neb, 
And  the  gray  deer  the  wolf  of  the  wood. 

The  bones  of  the  slain,  men  say,  whitened  the  place 
for  fifty  years  to  come. 

And  remember,  that  on  the  same  day  on  which 


248  THE   FIRST   DISCOVERY   OF   AMERICA. 

that  fight  befell— September  27,  1066— William,  Duke 
of  Normandy,  with  all  his  French-speaking  Norsemen, 
was  sailing  across  the  British  Channel,  under  the 
protection  of  a  banner  consecrated  by  the  Pope,  to 
conquer  that  England  which  the  Norse-speaking 
Normans  could  not  conquer. 

And  now  King  Harold  showed  himself  a  man.  He 
turned  at  once  from  the  North  of  England  to  the 
South.  He  raised  the  folk  of  the  Southern,  as  he 
had  raised  those  of  the  Central  and  Northern  shires  ; 
and  in  sixteen  days — after  a  march  which  in  those 
times  was  a  prodigious  feat — he  was  entrenched  upon 
the  fatal  down  which  men  called  Heathfield  then, 
and  Senlac,  but  Battle  to  this  day — with  William 
and  his  French  Normans  opposite  him  on  Telham 
hill. 

Then  came  the  battle  of  Hastings.  You  all 
know  what  befell  upon  that  day;  and  how  the  old 
weapon  was  matched  against  the  new — the  English 
axe  against  the  Norman  lance — and  beaten  only 
because  the  English  broke  their  ranks.  If  you  wish 
to  refresh  your  memories,  read  the  tale  once  more  in 
Mr.  Freeman^s  '^History  of  Biigland,^^  or  Professor 
Creasy^s  ^'  Fifteen  Decisive  Battles  of  the  World,^'  or 
even,  best  of  all,  the  late  Lord  Lytton^s  splendid 
romance  of  *'  Harold. ^^  And  when  you  go  to  England, 
go,  as  some  of  you  may  have  gone  already,  to  Battle ; 
and  there  from  off  the  Abbey  grounds,  or  from 
Mountjoye  behind,  look  down  off  what  was  then 
^^The  Heathy  Field,^^  over  the  long  slopes  of  green 
pasture  and  the  rich  hop-gardens,  where  were  no  hop- 
gardens then,  and  the  flat  tide-marshes  winding  between 
the  wooded  heights,  towards  the  southern  sea ;  and 
imagine  for  yourselves  the  feelings  of  an  Englishman 


THE   FIRST   DISCOVERY   OF  AMER* 

/I 


as  lie  contemplates  that  broad  green  gidpiiag  lawn,  oit'y 
wliich  was  decided  the  destiny  of  his  nati\^' /land. 
Here,  right  beneath,  rode  Taillefer  ui)/t!^e  slope?' 
before  them  all,  singing  the  song  of  Eolail^/ttesinff 
his  lance  in  air  and  catching  it  as  it  fell,  with  all  the\  ; 
Norse  berserker  spirit  of  his  ancestors  flashing  out  in 
him,  at  the  thought  of  one  fair  fight,  and  then  pur- 
gatory, or  Valhalla — Taillefer  perhaps  preferred  the 
latter.  Yonder  on  the  left,  in  that  copse  where  the 
red-ochre  gully  runs,  is  Sanguelac,  the  drain  of  blood, 
into  which  (as  the  Bayeux  tapestry,  woven  by 
Matilda^s  maids,  still  shows)  the  Norman  knights  fell, 
horse  and  man,  till  the  gully  was  bridged  with  writh- 
ing bodies  for  those  who  rode  after.  Here,  where 
you  stand — the  crest  of  the  hill  marks  where  it  must 
have  been — w^as  the  stockade  on  which  depended  the 
fate  of  England.  Yonder,  perhaps,  stalked  out  one 
English  squire  or  house-carle  after  another :  tall  men 
with  long-handled  battle-axes — one  specially  terrible, 
with  a  wooden  helmet  which  no  sword  could  pierce — 
who  hewed  and  hewed  down  knight  on  knight,  till 
they  themselves  were  borne  to  earth  at  last.  And 
here,  among  the  trees  and  ruins  of  the  garden,  kept 
trim  by  those  who  know  the  treasure  which  they  own, 
stood  Harold^s  two  standards  of  the  fighting-man 
and  the  dragon  of  Wessex.  And  here,  close  by  (for 
here,  for  many  a  century,  stood  the  high  altar  of 
Battle  Abbey,  where  monks  sang  masses  for  Harold^s 
soul),  upon  this  very  spot  the  Swan-neck  found  her 
hero-lover^s  corpse.  ^Ah,^^  says  many  an  Englishman 
— and  who  will  blame  him  for  it — "how  grand  to  have 
djed  beneath  that  standard  on  that  day !  ^'  Yes,  and 
how  right.  And  yet  how  right,  likewise,  that  the 
Norman^s  cry  of  Dexaie  I — "  God  Help  V — and  not  the 


250  THE   FIRST  DISCOVERY   OF   AMERICA. 

English  hurrah,  should  have  won  that  day,  till 
William  rode  up  Mount joye  in  the  afternoon  to  see 
the  English  army,  terrible  even  in  defeat,  struggling 
through  copse  and  marsh  away  toward  Brede,  and, 
like  retreating  lions  driven  into  their  native  woods, 
slaying  more  in  the  pursuit  than  they  slew  even  in 
the  fight. 

But  so  it  was  to  be  ;  for  so  it  ought  to  have  been. 
You,  my  American  friends,  delight,  as  I  have  said 
already,  in  seeing  the  old  places  of  the  old  country. 
Go,  I  beg  you,  and  look  at  that  old  place,  and  if  you 
be  wise,  you  will  carry  back  from  it  one  lesson  :  That 
God^s  thoughts  are  not  as  our  thoughts;  nor  Hi& 
ways  as  our  ways. 

It  was  a  fearful  time  which  followed.  I  cannot  but 
*  believe  that  our  forefathers  had  been,  in  some  way  or 
other,  great  sinners,  or  two  such  conquests  as  Canute^s 
and  William^s  would  not  have  fallen  on  them  within 
the  short  space  of  sixty  years.  They  did  not  want 
for  courage,  as  Stamford  Brigg  and  Hastings  showed 
full  well.  English  swine,  their  Norman  conquerors 
called  them  often  enough ;  but  never  English  cowards. 
Their  ruinous  vice,  if  we  are  to  trust  the  records  of  the 
time,  was  what  the  old  monks  called  accidia — afcrjSia — 
and  ranked  it  as  one  of  the  seven  deadly  sins :  a 
general  careless,  sleepy,  comfortable  habit  of  mind, 
which  lets  all  go  its  way  for  good  or  evil — a  habit  of 
mind  too  often  accompanied,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Anglo- 
Danes,  with  self-indulgence,  often  coarse  enough.  Huge 
eaters  and  huger  drinkers,  fuddled  with  ale,  were  the 
men  who  went  down  at  Hastings — though  they  went 
down  like  heroes — before  the  staid  and  sober  Norman 
out  of  France. 

But  those  were  fearful  times.     As  long  as  William 


THE    FIRST   DISCOVERY    OF   AMERICA.  251 

lived,,  ruthless  as  lie  was  to  all  rebels^  lie  kept  order 
and  did  justice  with,  a  strong  and  steady  hand  ;  for  he 
brought  with  him  from  Normandy  the  instincts  of  a 
truly  great  statesman.  And  in  his  sons^  time  matters 
grew  worse  and  worse.  After  that,  in  the  troubles  of, 
Stephen^s  reign,  anarchy  let  loose  tyranny  in  its  most 
fearful  form,  and  things  were  done  which  recall  the 
cruelties  of  the  old  Spanish  conquistador es  in  America. 
Scott^s  charming  romance  of  "  Ivanhoe  '^  must  be 
taken,  I  fear,  as  a  too  true  picture  of  English  society 
in  the  time  of  Richard  I. 

And  what  came  of  it  all  ?  What  was  the  result  of 
all  this  misery  and  wrong  ? 

This,  paradoxical  as  it  may  seem  :  That  the  Norman 
conquest  was  the  making  of  the  English  people ;  of 
the  Free  Commons  of  England. 

Paradoxical,  but  true.  First,  you  must  dismiss 
from  your  minds  the  top  common  notion  that  there  is 
now,  in  England,  a  governing  Norman  aristocracy,  or 
that  there  has  been  one,  at  least  since  the  year  1215, 
when  Magna  Charta  was  won  from  the  Norman  John 
by  Normans  and  by  English  alike.  For  the  first  victors 
at  Hastings,  like  the  first  conquistadores  in  America, 
perished,  as  the  monk  chronicles  point  out,  rapidly  by 
their  own  crimes ;  and  very  few  of  our  nobility  can 
trace  their  names  back  to  the  authentic  Battle  Abbey 
roll.  The  great  majority  of  the  peers  have  sprung 
from,  and  all  have  intermarried  with,  the  Commons ; 
and  the  peerage  has  been  from  the  first,  and  has 
become  more  and  more  as  centuries  have  rolled  on, 
the  prize  of  success  in  life. 

The  cause  is  plain.  The  conquest  of  England  by 
the  Normans  was  not  one  of  those  conquests  of  a 
savage  by  a  civilised  race,  or  of  a  cowardly  race  by  a 


252  THE   FIKST  DISCOVERY   OF  AMEEICA. 

brave  race,  wliicli  results  in  tlie  slavery  of  tlie  con- 
quered, and  leaves  the  gulf  of  caste  between  two 
races — master  and  slave.  That  was  the  case  in  France, 
and  resulted,  after  centuries  of  oppression,  in  the 
great  and  dreadful  revolution  of  1793,  which  con- 
vulsed not  only  France  but  the  whole  civilised  world. 
But  caste,  thank  God,  has  never  existed  in  England, 
since  at  least  the  first  generation  after  the  Norman 
conquest. 

The  vast  majority,  all  but  the  whole  population  of 
England,  have  been  always  free  ;  and  free,  as  they  are 
not  where  caste  exists  to  change  their  occupations. 
They  could  intermarry,  if  they  were  able  men,  into 
the  ranks  above  them  -,  as  they  could  sink,  if  they  were 
unable  men,  into  the  ranks  below  them.  Any  man 
acquainted  with  the  origin  of  our  English  surnames 
may  verify  this  fact  for  himself,  by  looking  at  the 
names  of  a  single  parish  or  a  single  street  of  shops. 
There,  jumbled  together,  he  will  find  names  marking 
the  noblest  Saxon  or  Angle  blood — Kenward  or  Kenric, 
Osgood  or  Osborne,  side  by  side  with  Cordery  or 
Banister — now  names  of  farmers  in  my  own  parish — 
or  other  Norman-French  names  which  may  be,  like 
those  two  last,  in  Battle  Abbey  roll — and  side  by  side 
the  almost  ubiquitous  Brown,  whose  ancestor  was 
probably  some  Danish  or  Norwegian  house-carle,  proud 
of  his  name  Biorn  the  Bear,  and  the  ubiquitous  Smith 
or  Smythe,  the  Smiter,  whose  forefather,  whether  he 
be  now  peasant  or  peer,  assuredly  handled  the  tongs 
and  hammer  at  his  own  forge.  This  holds  true  equally 
in  New  England  and  in  Old.  When  I  search  through 
(as  I  delight  to  do)  your  New  England  surnames,  I 
find  the  same  jumble  of  names — West  Saxon,  Angle, 
Danish,  Norman,  and  French-Norman  likewise,  many 


THE   FIRST  DISCOVERY    OF    AMERICA.  253 

of  primeeval  and  heatlien  antiquity,  many  of  high 
nobility,  all  worked  together,  as  at  home,  to  form  the 
Free  Commoners  of  England. 

If  any  should  wish  to  know  more  on  this  curious 
and  important  subject,  let  me  recommend  them  to 
study  Ferguson^s  ^^  Teutonic  Name  System,^^  a  book 
from  which  you  will  discover  that  some  of  our  quaintest, 
and  seemingly  most  plebeian  surnames — many  sur- 
names, too,  which  are  extinct  in  England,  but  remain 
in  America — are  really  corruptions  of  good  old  Teu- 
tonic names,  which  our  ancestors  may  have  carried 
in  the  German  Forest,  before  an  Englishman  set  foot 
on  British  soil ;  from  which  he  will  rise  with  the 
comfortable  feeling  that  we  English-speaking  men, 
from  the  highest  to  the  lowest,  are  literally  kinsmen. 
Nay,  so  utterly  made  up  now  is  the  old  blood-feud 
between  Norseman  and  Englishman,  between  the 
descendants  of  those  who  conquered  and  those  who 
were  conquered,  that  in  the  children  of  our  Prince 
of  Wales,  after  800  years,  the  blood  of  William  of 
Normandy  is  mingled  with  the  blood  of  the  very 
Harold  who  fell  at  Hastings.  And  so,  by  the  bitter 
woes  which  followed  the  Norman  conquest  was  the 
whole  population,  Dane,  Angle,  and  Saxon,  earl  and 
churl,  freeman  and  slave,  crushed  and  welded  together 
into  one  homogeneous  mass,  made  just  and  merciful 
towards  each  other  by  the  most  wholesome  of  all 
teachings,  a  community  of  suffering ;  and  if  they  had 
been,  as  I  fear  they  were,  a  lazy  and  a  sensual  people^ 
were  taught 

That  life  is  not  as  idle  ore, 
But  heated  hot  with  burning  fears, 
And  bathed  in  baths  of  hissing  tears. 
And  battered  with  the  strokes  of  doom 
To  shape  and  use. 


^64.  THE   FIRST   DISCOVERY   OF  AMERICA. 

But  Ilow  did  tliese  wild  Vikings  become  Christian 
men  ?  It  is  a  long  story.  So  stanch,  a  race  was  sure 
to  be  converted  only  very  slowly.  Noble  missionaries 
as  Ansgar,  Eembert,  and  Poppo,  had  worked  for  150 
years  and  more  among  the  heathens  of  Denmark. 
But  the  patriotism  of  the  Norseman  always  recoiled, 
even  though  in  secret,  from  the  fact  that  they  were 
German  monks,  backed  by  the  authority  of  the  German 
emperor;  and  many  a  man,  like  Svend  Pork-beard, 
father  of  the  great  Canute,  though  he  had  the  Kaiser 
himself  for  godfather,  turned  heathen  once  more  the 
moment  he  was  free,  because  his  baptism  was  the 
badge  of  foreign  conquest,  and  neither  pope  nor 
kaiser  should  lord  it  over  him,  body  or  soul.  St.  Olaf, 
indeed,  forced  Christianity  on  the  Norse  at  the  sword^s 
point,  often  by  horrid  cruelties,  and  perished  in  the 
attempt.  But  who  forced  it  on  the  Norsemen  of 
Scotland,  England,  Ireland,  Neustria,  Eussia,  and  all 
the  Eastern  Baltic  ?  It  was  absorbed  and  in  most 
cases,  I  believe,  gradually  and  willingly,  as  a  gospel  and 
good  news  to  hearts  worn  out  with  the  storm  of  their 
own  passions.  And  whence  came  their  Christianity  ? 
Much  of  it,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Danes,  and  still 
more  of  the  Prench  Normans,  came  direct  from  Rome, 
the  city  which,  let  them  defy  its  influence  as  they  would, 
was  still  the  fount  of  all  theology,  as  well  as  of  all 
civilisation.  But  I  must  believe  that  much  of  it  came 
from  that  mysterious  ancient  Western  Church,  the 
Church  of  St.  Patric,  St.  Bridget,  St.  Columba,  which 
had  covered  with  rude  cells  and  chapels  the  rocky 
islets  of  the  North  Atlantic,  even  to  Iceland  itself. 
Even  to  Iceland ;  for  when  that  island  was  first 
discovered,  about  a.d.  840,  the  Norsemen  found  in 
an  isle,  on  the   east   and  west   and  elsewhere,  Irish 


THE  FIRST   DISCOVERY   OF   AMERICA.  255 

books  and  bells  and  wooden  crosses^  and  named  tliat 
island  Papey,  the  isle  of  the  popes — some  little  colony 
of  monks^  who  lived  by  fishings  and  who  are  said  to 
have  left  the  land  when  the  Norsemen  settled  in  it. 
Let  us  believe^   for  it  is  consonant  with  reason  and 
experience^    that    the    sight   of    those   poor    monks^ 
plundered   and    massacred    again    and   again   by   the 
^^  mailed  swarms  of  Lochlin/^  yet  never  exterminated, 
but  springing  up  again  in  the  same  place,  ready  for 
fresh  massacre^  a  sacred  plant  which  God  had  planted, 
and  which  no  rage  of  man  could  trample  out — let  us 
believe,  I  say,  that  that  sight  taught  at  last  to  the 
buccaneers  of  the  old  world  that  there  was  a  purer 
manliness,  a  loftier  heroism,  than  the  ferocious  self- 
assertion    of    the    Berserker,    even    the    heroism    of 
humility,  gentleness,  self-restraint,  self-sacrifice;   that 
there   was   a   strength   which   was    made    perfect    in 
weakness ;  a  glory,  not  of  the  sword  but  of  the  cross. 
We    will    believe    that    that    was    the    lesson    which 
the  Norsemen   learnt,  after  many  a  wild  and  blood- 
stained voyage,  from  the  monks  of  lona  or  of  Derry, 
which  caused  the  building  of  such  churches  as  that 
which    Sightrys,    king   of    Dublin,   raised   about   the 
year  1030,  not  in  the  Norse  but  in  the  Irish  quarter 
of  Dublin  :  a  sacred  token  of  amity  between  the  new 
settlers  and  the  natives  on  the  ground  of  a  common 
faith.      Let    us   believe,    too,   that    the   influence   of 
woman  was  not  wanting  in  the  good  work — that  the 
story   of    St.    Margaret   and   Malcolm    Canmore   was 
repeated,  though   inversely,  in  the    case  of   many  a 
heathen  Scandinavian  jarl,  who,  marrying  the  princely 
Bk  daughter   of   some    Scottish   chieftain,    found   in   her 
H|L<3reed  at  last  something  more  precious  than  herself ; 
^B^hile  his  brother  or  his  cousin  became,  at  Dublin  or 

I 


256  THE   FIRST   DISCOVERY   OF  AMERICA. 

Wexford  or  Waterford^  the  husband  of  some  saffron- 
robed  Irish  princess^  ^^  fair  as  an  elf/^  as  the  old  sayings 
was ;  some  ^'  maiden  of  the  three  transcendent  hues/^ 
of  whom  the  old  book  of  Linane  says  : 

Red  as  the  blood  which  flowed  from  stricken  deer, 
White  as  the  snow  on  which  that  blood  ran  down, 
Black  as  the  raven  who  drank  up  that  blood ; 

— and  possibly^  as  in  the  case  of  Brian  Borahs  mother^ 
had  given  his  fair-haired  sister  in  marriage  to  some 
Irish  prince^  and  could  not  resist  the  spell  of  their  new 
creed^  and  the  spell  too,  it  may  be^  of  some  sister  of 
theirs  who  had  long  given  up  all  thought  of  earthly 
marriage  to  tend  the  undying  fire  of  St.  Bridget 
among  the  consecrated  virgins  of  Kildare. 

I  am  not  drawing  from  mere  imagination.  That 
such  things  must  have  happened^  and  happened  again 
and  again,  is  certain  to  anyone  who  knows,  even 
superficially,  the  documents  of  that  time.  And  I 
doubt  not  that,  in  manners  as  well  as  in  religion,  the 
Norse  were  humanised  and  civilised  by  their  contact 
with  the  Celts,  both  in  Scotland  and  in  Ireland.  Both 
peoples  had  valour,  intellect,  imagination  :  but  the  Celt 
had  that  which  the  burly  angular  Norse  character,, 
however  deep  and  stately,  and  however  humorous, 
wanted;  namely,  music  of  nature,  tenderness,  grace, 
rapidity,  playfulness;  just  the  qualities,  combining^ 
with  the  Scandinavian  (and  in  Scotland  with  the 
Angle)  elements  of  character  which  have  produced,  in 
Ireland  and  in  Scotland,  two  schools  of  lyric  poetry 
second  to  none  in  the  world. 

And  so  they  were  converted  to  what  was  then  a 
dark  and  awful  creed ;  a  creed  of  ascetic  self-torture 
and  purgatorial  fires  for  those  who  escape   the   still 


THE   FIRST   DISCOVERY   OF  AMERICA.  257 

more  dreadful^  because  endless^  doom  o£  tlie  rest  of 
tlie  human  race.  But^  because  it  was  a  sad  creed, 
it  suited  better,  men  wbo  had,  when  conscience  re- 
awakened in  them,  but  too  good  reason  to  be  sad; 
and  the  minsters  and  cloisters  which  sprang  up  over 
the  whole  of  Northern  Europe,  and  even  beyond  it, 
along  the  dreary  western  shores  of  Greenland  itself,  are 
the  symbols  of  a  splendid  repentance  for  their  own 
sins  and  for  the  sins  of  their  forefathers. 

Grudruna  herself,  of  whom  I  spoke  just  now,  one 
of  those  old  Norse  heroines  who  helped  to  discover 
America,  though  a  historic  personage,  is  a  symbolic 
one  likewise,  and  the  pattern  of  a  whole  class.  She, 
too,  after  many  journeys  to  Iceland,  Greenland,  and 
Winland,  goes  on  a  pilgrimage  to  Rome,  to  get,  I 
presume,  absolution  from  the  Pope  himself  for  all  the 
sins  of  her  strange,  rich,  stormy,  wayward  life. 

Have  you  not  read — many  of  you  surely  have — 
La  Motte  Fouque^s  romance  of  ^'  Sintram  ?  ^^  It 
embodies  all  that  I  would  say.  It  is  the  spiritual 
drama  of  that  early  Middle  Age ;  very  sad,  morbid  if 
you  will,  but  true  to  fact.  The  Lady  Verena  ought 
not,  perhaps,  to  desert  her  husband,  and  shut  herself 
up  in  a  cloister.  But  so  she  would  have  done  in 
those  old  days.  And  who  shall  judge  her  harshly  for 
so  doing?  When  the  brutality  of  the  man  seems 
past  all  cure,  who  shall  blame  the  woman  if  she 
glides  away  into  some  atmosphere  of  peace  and 
purity,  to  pray  for  him  whom  neither  warnings  nor 
caresses  will  amend  ?  It  is  a  sad  book,  ''  Sintram. ^^ 
And  yet  not  too  sad.  For  they  were  a  sad  people,  those 
old  Norse  forefathers  of  ours.  Their  Christianity  was 
sad ;  then"  minsters  sad ;  there  are  few  sadder,  though 
few  grander,  buildings  than  a  Norman  church. 

VOL.  I. — H.  E.  s 


258  THE   FIRST  DISCOVERY   OF   AMERICA. 

And  yet,  perhaps,  their  Christianity  did  not  make 
them  sad.  It  was  but  the  other  and  the  healthier 
side  of  that  sadness  which  they  had  as  heathens. 
Read  which  you  will  of  the  old  sagas — heathen  or 
half  -  Christian — the  Eyrbiggia,  Viga  Glum,  Burnt 
Niall,  Grettir  the  Strong,  and,  above  all,  Snorri  Stur- 
luson^s  ^^  Heimskringla  ■'^  itself — and  you  will  see  at 
once  how  sad  they  are.  There  is,  in  the  old  sagas^ 
none  of  that  enjoyment  of  life  which  shines  out 
everywhere  in  Greek  poetry,  even  through  its  deepest 
tragedies.  Not  in  complacency  with  Nature^s  beauty, 
but  in  the  fierce  struggle  with  her  wrath,  does  the 
Norseman  feel  pleasure.  Nature  to  him  was  not,  as 
in  Mr.  Longfellow^s  exquisite  poem,^  the  kind  old 
nurse,  to  take  him  on  her  knee  and  whisper  to  him, 
ever  anew,  the  story  without  an  end.  She  was  a 
weird  witch-wife,  mother  of  storm  demons  and  frost 
giants,  who  must  be  fought  with  steadily,  warily, 
wearily,  over  dreary  heaths  and  snow-capped  fells, 
and  rugged  nesses  and  tossing  sounds,  and  away  into 
the  boundless  sea — or  who  could  live  ? — till  he  got 
hardened  in  the  fight  into  ruthlessness  of  need  and 
greed.  The  poor  strip  of  flat  strath,  ploughed  and 
re-ploughed  again  in  the  short  summer  days,  would 
yield  no  more ;  or  wet  harvests  spoiled  the  crops,  or 
heavy  snows  starved  the  cattle.  And  so  the  Norse- 
man launched  his  ships  when  the  lands  were  sown  in 
spring,  and  went  forth  to  pillage  or  to  trade,  as  luck 
would  have,  to  summerted,  as  he  himself  called  it; 
and  came  back,  if  he  ever  came,  in  autumn  to  the 
women  to  help  at  harvest- time,  with  blood  upon  his 
hand.  But  had  he  stayed  at  home,  blood  would  have 
been  there  still.  Three  out  of  four  of  them  had  been 
*  On  the  Fiftieth  Birthday  of  Agassiz. 


THE   FIRST   DISCOVERY   OF   AMERICA.  259 

mixed  up  in  some  man-slaying^  or  had.  some  blood-feud 
to  avenge  among  tlieir  own  kin. 

The  whole  of  Scandinavia,  Denmark,  Sweden, 
Norway,  Orkney,  and  the  rest,  remind  me  ever  of  that 
terrible  picture  of  the  great  Norse  painter,  Tiddeman, 
in  which  two  splendid  youths,  lashed  together,  in  true 
Norse  duel  fashion  by  the  waist,  are  hewing  each  other 
to  death  with  the  short  axe,  about  some  hot  words 
over  their  ale.  The  loss  of  life,  and  that  of  the  most 
gallant  of  the  young,  in  those  days  must  have  been 
enormous.  If  the  vitality  of  the  race  had  not  been 
even  more  enormous,  they  must  have  destroyed  each 
other,  as  the  Red  Indians  have  done,  off  the  face  of 
the  earth.  They  lived  these  Norsemen,  not  to  live — 
they  lived  to  die.  For  what  cared  they  ?  Death — > 
what  was  death  to  them  ?  what  it  was  to  the  Joms- 
burger  Viking,  who,  when  led  out  to  execution,  said  to 
the  headsman  :  ^^Die  !  with  all  pleasure.  We  used  to 
question  in  Jomsburg  whether  a  man  felt  when  his 
head  was  ofE  ?  Now  I  shall  know ;  but  if  I  do,  take 
care,  for  I  shall  smite  thee  with  my  knife.  And  mean- 
while, spoil  not  this  long  hair  of  mine ;  it  is  so  beautiful." 

But,  oh  !  what  waste  !  What  might  not  these  men 
have  done  if  they  had  sought  peace,  not  war ;  if  they 
had  learned  a  few  centuries  sooner  to  do  justly,  and 
love  mercy,  and  walk  humbly  with  their  God  ? 

And  yet  one  loves  them,  blood-stained  as  they  are. 
Your  own  poets,  men  brought  up  under  circumstances, 
under  ideas  the  most  opposite  to  theirs,  love  them, 
and  cannot  help  it.  And  why?  It  is  not  merely 
for  their  bold  daring,  it  is  not  merely  for  their 
stern  endurance;  nor  again  that  they  had  in  them 
that  shift  and  thrift,  those  steady  and  common- 
sense  business  habits,  which  made  their  noblest  men 

s  2 


260  THE   FIRST  DISCOVERY   OF   AMERICA. 

not  ashamed  to  go  on  voyages  of  mercliandise.  Nor 
is  it,  again,  tliat  grim  humour — liumour  as  of  the 
modern  Scotch — which  so  often  flashes  out  into  an 
actual  jest,  but  more  usually  underlies  unspoken  all 
their  deeds.  Is  it  not  rather  that  these  men  are  our 
forefathers  ?  that  their  blood  runs  in  the  veins  of 
perhaps  three  men  out  of  four  in  any  general  assembly, 
whether  in  America  or  in  Britain  ?  Startling  as  the 
assertion  may  be,  I  believe  it  to  be  strictly  true. 

Be  that  as  it  may,  I  cannot  read  the  stories  of 
your  western  men,  the  writings  of  Bret  Harte,  or 
Colonel  John  Hay,  for  instance,  without  feeling  at 
every  turn  that  there  are  the  old  Norse  alive  again^ 
beyond  the  very  ocean  which  they  first  crossed,  850 
years  ago. 

Let  me  try  to  prove  my  point,  and  end  with  a 
story,  as  I  began  with  one. 

It  is  just  thirty  years  before  the  Norman  conquest 
of  England,  the  evening  of  the  battle  of  Sticklestead. 
St.  Olaf^s  corpse  is  still  lying  unburied  on  the  hillside. 
The  reforming  and  Christian  king  has  fallen  in  the 
attempt  to  force  Christianity  and  despotism  on  the 
Conservative  and  half -heathen  party — the  free  bonders 
or  yeoman-farmers  of  Norway.  Thormod,  his  poet — 
the  man,  as  his  name  means,  of  thunder  mood — who 
has  been  standing  in  the  ranks,  at  last  has  an  arrow 
in  his  left  side.  He  breaks  off  the  shaft,  and  thus  sore 
wounded  goes  up,  when  all  is  lost,  to  a  farm  where 
is  a  great  barn  full  of  wounded.  One  Kimbe  conies, 
a  man  out  of  the  opposite  or  bonder  part.  '^  There  is 
great  howling  and  screaming  in  there,^^  he  says. 
'^  King  OlaFs  men  fought  bravely  enough :  but  it  is  a 
shame  brisk  young  lads  cannot  bear  their  wounds. 
On  what  side  wert  thou  in  the  fight  ?  ^^  ^^  On  the  best 
side/^  says  the  beaten  Thormod.     Kimbe  sees  that 


THE   FIRST   DISCOVERY   OF   AMERICA.  261 

Thormod  lias  a  good  bracelet  on  his  arm.  ^^  Thou  art 
surely  a  king^s  man.  Give  me  thy  gold  ring  and  I 
will  hide  thee,  ere  the  bonders  kill  thee."*^ 

Thormod  said^  '^  Take  it,  if  thou  canst  get  it.  I 
have  lost  that  which  is  worth  more ;  '^  and  he  stretched 
out  his  left  hand^  and  Kimbe  tried  to  take  it.  But 
Thormod^  swinging  his  sword^,  cut  off  his  hand ;  and  it 
is  said  Kimbe  behaved  no  better  over  his  wound  than 
those  he  had  been  blaming. 

Then  Thormod  went  into  the  barn ;  and  after  he 
had  sung  his  song  there  in  praise  of  his  dead  king,  he 
went  into  an  inner  room,  where  was  a  fire,  and  water 
warming,  and  a  handsome  girl  binding  up  men^s 
wounds.  And  he  sat  down  by  the  door;  and  one 
said  to  him,  '^  Why  art  thou  so  dead  pale  ?  Why  dost 
thou  not  call  for  the  leech  ?  ^^     Then  sung  Thormod  : 

**  I  am  not  blooming ;  and  the  fair 
And  slender  maiden  loves  to  care 
For  blooming  youths.     Few  care  for  me, 
With  Fenri's  gold  meal  I  can't  fee  ; " 

and  so  forth,  improvising  after  the  old  Norse  fashion. 
Then  Thormod  got  up  and  went  to  the  fire,  and 
stood  and  warmed  himself.  And  the  nurse-girl  said 
to  him,  "  Go  out,  man,  and  bring  some  of  the  split-  - 
firewood  which  lies  outside  the  door.''^  He  went  out 
and  brought  an  armful  of  wood  and  threw  it  down. 
Then  the  nurse-girl  looked  him  in  the  face,  and  said, 
'^  Dreadful  pale  is  this  man.  Why  art  thou  so  ?  ^^ 
Then  sang  Thormod : 

"  Thon  wonderest,  sweet  bloom,  at  me, 
A  man  so  hideous  to  see. 
The  arrow-drift  o'ertook  me,  girl, 
A  fine-ground  arrow  in  the  whirl 
Went  through  me,  and  I  feel  the  dart 
Sits,  lovely  lass,  too  near  my  heart." 


262  THE  FIEST  DISCOVEEY   OF  AMERICA. 

The  girl  said^  ^^  Let  me  see  thy  wonnd/^  Then 
Thormod  sat  down,  and  the  girl  saw  his  wounds,  and 
that  which  was  in  his  side,  and  saw  that  there  was  a 
piece  of  iron  in  it;  but  could  not  tell  where  it  had 
gone.  In  a  stone  pot  she  had  leeks  and  other  herbs, 
and  boiled  them,  and  gave  the  wounded  man  of  it  to 
eat.  But  Thormod  said,  '^  Take  it  away ;  I  have  no 
appetite  now  for  my  broth.-*^  Then  she  took  a  great 
pair  of  tongs  and  tried  to  pull  out  the  iron ;  but  the 
wound  was  swelled,  and  there  was  too  little  to  lay  hold 
of.  Now  said  Thormod,  '^  Cut  in  so  deep  that  thou 
canst  get  at  the  iron,  and  give  me  the  tongs.''  She  did 
as  he  said.  Then  took  Thormod  the  gold  bracelet  off 
his  hand  and  gave  it  the  nurse-girl,  and  bade  her  do 
with  it  what  she  liked. 

^^  It  is  a  good  man^s  gift,^^  said  he.  ^^  King  Olaf 
gave  me  the  ring  this  morning.''^ 

Then  Thormod  took  the  tongs  and  pulled  the  iron 
out.  But  on  the  iron  was  a  barb,  on  which  hung  flesh 
from  the  heart,  some  red,  some  white.  When  he  saw 
that,  he  said,  '^  The  king  has  fed  us  well.  I  am  fat, 
even  to  the  hearths  roots. ^^  And  so  leant  back  and 
was  dead. 


CYRUS,  THE  SERVANT  OP  THE  LORD. 


CYRUS,  THE  SERVANT  OF  THE  LORD.'^ 


I  WISH  to  speak  to  you  to-niglit  about  one  of  those  old 
despotic  empires  which,  were  in  every  case  the  earliest 
known  form  of  civilisation.  Were  I  minded  to  play 
the  cynic  or  the  mountebank,  I  should  choose  some 
corrupt  and  effete  despotism,  already  grown  weak  and 
ridiculous  by  its  decay — as  did  at  last  the  Roman  and 
then  the  Byzantine  Empire — and,  after  raising  a  laugh 
at  the  expense  of  the  old  system  say :  See  what  a 
superior  people  you  are  now — how  impossible,  under 
free  and  enlightened  institutions,  is  anything  so  base 
and  so  absurd  as  went  on,  even  in  despotic  France 
before  the  Revolution  of  1793.  Well,  that  would  be 
on  the  whole  true,  thank  God ;  but  what  need  is  there 
to  say  it  ? 

Let  us  keep  our  scorn  for  our  own  weaknesses, 
our  blame  for  our  own  sins,  certain  that  we  shall  gain 
more  instruction,  though  not  more  amusement,  by 
hunting  out  the  good  which  is  in  anything  than 
by  hunting  out  its  evil.  I  have  chosen,  not  the 
worst,  but  the  best  despotism  which  I  could  find  in 
history,  founded  and  ruled  by  a  truly  heroic  personage, 
*  This  lecture  was  given  in  America  in  1874. 


266  CYEUS,  THE   SERVANT   OF   THE    LORD. 

one  whose  name  has  become  a  proverb  and  a  legend^ 
that  so  I  might  lift  up  your  minds^  even  by  the  con- 
templation of  an  old  Eastern  empire^  to  see  that  it, 
too,  could  be  a  work  and  ordinance  of  God,  and  its 
hero  the  servant  of  the  Lord.  For  we  are  almost 
bound  to  call  Cyrus,  the  founder  of  the  Persian 
Empire,  by  this  august  title  for  two  reasons — First, 
because  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  call  him  so ;  the  next, 
because  he  proved  himself  to  be  such  by  his  actions 
and  their  consequences — at  least  in  the  eyes  of  those 
who  believe,  as  I  do,  in  a  far-seeing  and  far-reaching 
Providence,  by  which  all  human  history  is 

Bound  by  gold  chains  unto  the  throne  of  God. 

His  work  was  very  different  from  any  that  need  be 
done,  or  can  be  done,  in  these  our  days.  But  while 
we  thank  God  that  such  work  is  now  as  unnecessary 
as  impossible  ;  we  may  thank  God  likewise  that,  when 
such  work  was  necessary  and  possible,  a  man  was 
raised  up  to  do  it :  and  to  do  it,  as  all  accounts  assert, 
better,  perhaps,  than  it  had  ever  been  done  before  or 
since. 

True,  the  old  conquerors,  who  absorbed  nation 
after  nation,  tribe  after  tribe,  and  founded  empires  on 
their  ruins,  are  now,  I  trust,  about  to  be  replaced, 
throughout  the  world,  as  here  and  in  Britain  at  home, 
by  free  self -governed  peoples : 

The  old  order  changeth,  giving  place  to  the  new ; 

And  God  fulfils  Himself  in  many  ways, 

Lest  one  good  custom  should  corrupt  the  world. 

And  that  custom  of  conquest  and  empire  and  trans- 
plantation did  more  than  once  corrupt  the  world.  And 
yet  in  it,  too,  God  may  have  more  than  once  fulfilled 


CYRUS,   THE   SERVANT   OF  THE   LORD.  267 

His  own  designs,  as  He  did^  if  Scripture  is  to  be 
believed^  in.  Cyrus^  well  surnamed  tlie  Great,  the 
founder  of  the  Persian  Empire  some  2400  years  ago. 
For  these  empires,  it  must  be  remembered,  did  at 
least  that  which  the  Roman  Empire  did  among  a 
scattered  number  of  savage  tribes,  or  separate  little 
races,  hating  and  murdering  each  other,  speaking 
different  tongues,  and  worshipping  different  gods, 
and  losing  utterly  the  sense  of  a  common  humanity, 
till  they  looked  on  the  people  who  dwelt  in  the  next 
valley  as  fiends,  to  be  sacrificed,  if  caught,  to  their 
own  fiends  at  home.  Among  such  as  these,  empires 
did  introduce  order,  law,  common  speech,  common 
interest,  the  notion  of  nationality  and  humanity. 
They,  as  it  were,  hammered  together  the  fragments  of 
the  human  race  till  they  had  moulded  them  into  one. 
They  did  it  cruelly,  clumsily,  ill :  but  was  there  ever 
work  done  on  earth,  however  noble,  which  was  not — 
alas,  alas  ! — done  somewhat  ill  ? 

Let  me  talk  to  you  a  little  about  the  old  hero. 
He  and  his  hardy  Persians  should  be  specially  inte- 
resting to  us.  For  in  them  first  does  our  race,  the 
Aryan  race,  appear  in  authentic  history.  In  them 
first  did  our  race  give  promise  of  being  the  conquering 
and  civilising  race  of  the  future  world.  And  to  the 
conquests  of  Cyrus — so  strangely  are  all  great  times 
and  great  movements  of  the  human  family  linked 
to  each  other — to  his  conquests,  humanly  speaking,  is 
owing  the  fact  that  you  are  here,  and  I  am  speaking 
to  you  at  this  moment. 

It  is  an  oft-told  story :  but  so  grand  a  one  that  I 
must  sketch  it  for  you,  however  clumsily,  once  more. 

In  that  mountain  province  called  Farsistan,  north- 
east of  what  we  now  call  Persia,  the  dwelling-place  of 


268  CYRUS,    THE    SERVANT   OF   THE   LORD. 

the  Persians,  there  dwelt,  in  the  sixth  and  seventh 
ceptaries  before  Christ,  a  hardy  tribe,  of  the  purest 
blood  of  Iran,  a  branch  of  the  same  race  as  the  Celtic, 
Teutonic,  Greek,  and  Hindoo,  and  speaking  a  tongue 
akin  to  theirs.  They  had  wandered  thither,  say  their 
legends,  out  of  the  far  north-east,  from  off  some  lofty 
plateau  of  Central  Asia,  driven  out  by  the  increasing 
cold,  which  left  them  but  two  months  of  summer  to 
ten  of  winter. 

They  despised  at  first — would  that  they  had  despised 
always ! — the  luxurious  life  of  the  dwellers  in  the 
plains,  and  the  effeminate  customs  of  the  Modes — a 
branch  of  their  own  race  who  had  conquered  and 
intermarried  with  the  Turanian,  or  Finnish  tribes ; 
and  adopted  much  of  their  creed^  as  w^ell  as  of  their 
morals,  throughout  their  vast  but  short-lived  Median 
Empire.  ^^  Soft  countries,^^  said  Cyrus  himself — so 
runs  the  tale — ^^gave  birth  to  small  men.  No  region 
produced  at  once  delightful  fruits  and  men  of  a  war- 
like spirit.''^  Letters  were  to  them,  probably,  then 
unknown.  They  borrowed  them  in  after  years,  as 
they  borrowed  their  art,  from  Babylonians,  Assyrians, 
and  other  Semitic  nations  whom  they  conquered. 
From  the  age  of  five  to  that  of  twenty,  their  lads 
were  instructed  but  in  two  things — to  speak  the  truth 
and  to  shoot  with  the  bow.  To  ride  was  the  third 
necessary  art,  introduced,  according  to  Xenophon,  after 
they  had  descended  from  their  mountain  fastnesses  to 
conquer  the  whole  East. 

Their  creed  was  simple  enough.  Ahura  Mazda — 
Ormuzd,  as  he  has  been  called  since — was  the  one 
eternal  Creator,  the  source  of  all  light  and  life  and 
good.  He  spake  his  word,  and  it  accomplished  the 
creation  of  heaven_,  before  the  water,  before  the  earthy 


CYRUS,   THE    SERVANT   OF   THE   LORD.  269 

before  the  cow^  before  the  tree_,  before  the  fire,  before 
man  the  truthful,  before  the  Devas  and  beasts  of  prey, 
before  the  whole  existing  universe  ;  before  every  good 
thing  created  by  Ahura  Mazda  and  springing  from 
Truth. 

He  needed  no  sacrifices  of  blood.  He  was  to  be 
worshipped  only  with  prayers,  with  offerings  of  the 
inspiring  juice  of  the  now  unknown  herb  Homa,  and 
by  the  preservation  of  the  sacred  fire,  which,  under- 
stand, was  not  he,  but  the  symbol — as  was  light  and 
the  sun — of  the  good  spirit — of  Ahura  Mazda.  They 
had  no  images  of  the  gods,  these  old  Persians ;  no 
temples,  no  altars,  so  says  Herodotus,  and  considered 
the  use  of  them  a  sign  of  folly.  They  were,  as  has 
been  well  said  of  them,  the  Puritans  of  the  old  world. 
When  they  descended  from  their  mountain  fastnesses, 
they  became  the  iconoclasts  of  the  old  world ;  and  the 
later  Isaiah,  out  of  the  depths  of  national  shame, 
captivity,  and  exile,  saw  in  them  brother-spirits,  the 
chosen  of  the  Lord,  whose  hero  Cyrus,  the  Lord  was 
holding  by  His  right  hand,  till  all  the  foul  superstitions 
and  foul  effeminacies  of  the  rotten  Semitic  peoples  of 
the  East,  and  even  of  Egypt  itself,  should  be  crushed, 
though,  alas !  only  for  awhile,  by  men  who  felt  that 
they  had  a  commission  from  the  God  of  light  and 
truth  and  purity,  to  sweep  out  all  that  with  the  besom 
of  destruction. 

But  that  was  a  later  inspiration.  In  earlier,  and 
it  may  be  happier,  times  the  duty  of  the  good  man 
was  to  strive  against  all  evil,  disorder,  uselessness, 
incompetence  in  their  more  simple  forms.  ^^  He  there- 
fore is  a  holy  man,^^  says  Ormuzd  in  the  Zend-avesta, 
'^  who  has  built  a  dwelliug  on  the  earth,  in  which  he 
maintains  fire,  cattle,  his  wife,  his  children^  and  flocks 


270  CYRUS,  THE    SEHYANT   OP   THE   LOED. 

and  herds ;  lie  who  makes  the  earth  produce  barley, 
he  who  cultivates  the  fruits  of  the  soil,  cultivates 
purity  ;  he  advances  the  law  of  Ahura  Mazda  as  much 
as  if  he  had  offered  a  hundred  sacrifices/^ 

To  reclaim  the  waste,  to  till  the  land,  to  make  a 
corner  of  the  earth  better  than  they  found  it,  was  to 
these  men  to  rescue  a  bit  of  Ormuzd^s  world  out  of 
the  usurped  dominion  of  Ahriman ;  to  rescue  it  from 
the  spirit  of  evil  and  disorder  for  its  rightful  owner, 
the  Spirit  of  Order  and  of  Good. 

Eor  they  believed  in  an  evil  spirit,  these  old 
Persians.  Evil  was  not  for  them  a  lower  form  of 
good.  With  their  intense  sense  of  the  difference  be- 
tween right  and  wrong  it  could  be  nothing  less  than 
hateful ;  to  be  attacked,  exterminated,  as  a  personal 
enemy,  till  it  became  to  them  at  last  impersonate  and 
a  person. 

Zarathustra,  the  mystery  of  evil,  weighed  heavily 
on  them  and  on  their  great  prophet,  Zoroaster — 
splendour  of  gold,  as  I  am  told  his  name  signifies — 
who  lived,  no  man  knows  clearly  when  or  clearly 
where,  but  who  lived  and  lives  for  ever,  for  his  works 
follow  him.  He,  too,  tried  to  solve  for  his  people  the 
mystery  of  evil ;  and  if  he  did  not  succeed,  who  has 
succeeded  yet  ?  Warring  against  Ormuzd,  Ahura 
Mazda,  was  Ahriman,  Angra  Mainyus,  literally  the 
being  of  an  evil  mind,  the  ill-conditioned  being.  He 
was  labouring  perpetually  to  spoil  the  good  work  of 
Ormuzd  alike  in  nature  and  in  man.  He  was  the 
cause  of  the  fall  of  man,  the  tempter,  the  author  of 
misery  and  death;  he  was  eternal  and  uncreate  as 
Ormuzd  was.  But  that,  perhaps,  was  a  corruption  of 
the  purer  and  older  Zoroastrian  creed.  With  it,  if 
Ahriman  were  eternal  in  the  past,  he  would  not  be 


CYEUS,   THE   SERVANT   OF   THE   LORD.  271 

eternal  in  the  future.  Someliow_,  somewhen^  some- 
wliere,  in  the  day  when  three  prophets — the  increasing 
lights  the  increasing  truths  arid  the  existing  truth — • 
should  arise  and  give  to  mankind  the  last  three  books 
of  the  Zend-avesta^  and  convert  all  mankind  to  the 
pure  creed,,  then  evil  should  be  conquered,  the  creation 
become  pure  again,  and  Ahriman  vanish  for  ever; 
and,  meanwhile,  every  good  man  was  to  fight  valiantly 
for  Ormuzd,  his  true  lord,  against  Ahriman  and  all 
his  works. 

Men  who  held  such  a  creed,  and  could  speak  truth 
and  draw  the  bow,  what  might  they  not  do  when  the 
hour  and  the  man  arrived  ?  They  were  not  a  hig 
nation.  No ;  but  they  were  a  great  nation,  even  while 
they  were  eating  barley-bread  and  paying  tribute  to 
their  conquerors  the  Medes,  in  the  sterile  valleys  of 
Farsistan. 

And  at  last  the  hour  and  the  man  came.  The 
story  is  half  legendary — differently  told  by  different 
authors.  Herodotus  has  one  tale,  Xenophon  another. 
The  first,  at  least,  had  ample  means  of  information. 
Astyages  is  the  old  shah  of  the  Median  Empire,  then 
at  the  height  of  its  seeming  might  and  splendour 
and  effeminacy.  He  has  married  his  daughter,  the 
Princess  Mandane,  to  Cambyses,  seemingly  a  vassal- 
king  or  prince  of  the  pure  Persian  blood.  One  night 
the  old  man  is  troubled  with  a  dream.  He  sees  a  vine 
spring  from  his  daughter,  which  overshadows  all  Asia. 
He  sends  for  the  Magi  to  interpret ;  and  they  tell  him 
that  Mandane  will  have  a  son  who  will  reign  in  his 
stead.  Having  sons  of  his  own,  and  fearing  for  the 
succession,  he  sends  for  Mandane,  and,  when  her  child 
is  born,  gives  it  to  Harpagus,  one  of  his  courtiers,  to 
be  slain.     The  courtier  relents,  and  hands  it  over  to  a 


272  CYRUS,  THE   SERVANT    OF   THE    LORD. 

herdsman,  to  be  exposed  on  tlie  mountains.  The 
herdsman  relents  in  turn,  and  brings  the  babe  up  as 
his  own  child. 

When  the  boy,  who  goes  by  the  name  of  Agradates,. 
is  grown,  he  is  at  play  with  the  other  herdboys,  and 
they  choose  him  for  a  mimic  king.  Some  he  makes^ 
his  guards,  some  he  bids  build  houses,  some  carry  his 
messages.  The  son  of  a  Mede  of  rank  refuses,  and 
Agradates  has  him  seized  by  his  guards  and  chastised 
with  the  whip.  The  ancestral  instincts  of  command 
and  discipline  are  showing  early  in  the  lad. 

The  young  gentleman  complains  to  his  father,  the 
father  to  the  old  king,  who  of  course  sends  for  the 
herdsman  and  his  boy.  The  boy  answers  in  a  tone  so 
exactly  like  that  in  which  Xenophon^s  Cyrus  would 
have  answered,  that  I  must  believe  that  both  Xeno- 
phon^s  Cyrus  and  Herodotus^s  Cyrus  (like  Xeno.phon^s 
Socrates  and  Plato^s  Socrates)  are  real  pictures  of  a 
real  character ;  and  that  Herodotus^ s  story,  though 
Xenophon  says  nothing  of  it,  is  true. 

He  has  done  nothing,  the  noble  boy  says,  but  what 
was  just.  He  had  been  chosen  king  in  play,  because 
the  boys  thought  him  most  fit.  The  boy  whom  he  had 
chastised  was  one  of  those  who  chose  him.  All  the 
rest  obeyed :  but  he  would  not,  till  at  last  he  got  his 
due  reward.  ^^  If  I  deserve  punishment  for  that,^^ 
says  the  boy,  ^^  I  am  ready  to  submit.''^ 

The  old  king  looks  keenly  and  wonderingly  at  the 
young  king,  whose  features  seem  somewhat  like  his 
own.  Likely  enough  in  those  days,  when  an  Iranian 
noble  or  prince  would  have  a  quite  different  cast  of 
complexion  and  of  face  from  a  Turanian  herdsman.  A 
suspicion  crosses  him;  and  by  threats  of  torture  he 
gets  the  truth  from  the  trembling  herdsman. 


CYRUS,  THE    SERVANT   OF   THE   LORD.  273 

To  tlie  poor  wretches  rapture  tlie  old  king  lets  him 
go  unliarmed.  He  has  a  more  exquisite  revenge  to 
take,  and  sends  for  Harpagus,  who  likewise  confesses 
the  truth.  The  wily  old  tyrant  has  naught  but  gentle 
words.  It  is  best  as  it  is.  He  has  been  very  sorry 
himself  for  the  child,  and  Mandane^s  reproaches  had 
gone  to  his  heart.  '^  Let  Harpagus  go  home  and  send 
his  son  to  be  a  companion  to  the  new-found  prince. 
To-night  there  will  be  great  sacrifices  in  honour  of  the 
child^s  safety,  and  Harpagus  is  to  be  a  guest  at  the 
banquet.-'^ 

Harpagus  comes ;  and  after  eating  his  fill,  is  asked 
how  he  likes  the  king^s  meat  ?  He  gives  the  usual 
answer ;  and  a  covered  basket  is  put  before  him,  out 
of  which  he  is  to  take — in  Median  fashion — what 
he  likes.  He  finds  in  it  the  head  and  hands  and 
feet  of  his  own  son.  Like  a  true  Eastern  he  shows 
no  signs  of  horror.  The  king  asks  him  if  he  knew 
what  flesh  he  had  been  eating.  He  answers  that  he 
knew  perfectly.  That  whatever  the  king  did  pleased 
him. 

Like  an  Eastern  courtier,  he  knew  how  to  dis- 
semble, but  not  to  forgive,  and  bided  his  time.  The 
Magi,  to  their  credit,  told  Astyages  that  his  dream  had 
been  fulfilled,  that  Cyrus — as  we  must  now  call  the 
foundling  prince — had  fulfilled  it  by  becoming  a  king 
in  play,  and  the  boy  is  let  to  go  back  to  his  father  and 
his  hardy  Persian  life.  But  Harpagus  does  not  leave 
him  alone,  nor  perhaps,  do  his  own  thoughts.  He  has 
wrongs  to  avenge  on  his  grandfather.  And  it  seems 
not  altogether  impossible  to  the  young  mountaineer. 

He  has  seen  enough  of  Median  luxury  to  despise 
it  and  those  who  indulge  in  it.  He  has  seen  his  own 
grandfather  with  his  cheeks  rouged^  his  eyelids  stained 

VOL.  I. — H.  E.  T 


274  CYEUS,  THE   SERVANT   OF   THE   LORD. 

witli  antimony^  living  a  womanlike  life^  shut  up  from 
all  Lis  subjects  in  tlie  recesses  of  a  vast  seraglio. 

He  calls  together  the  mountain  rulers;  makes 
friends  with  Tigranes^  an  Armenian  prince^  a  vassal 
of  the  Mode,  who  has  his  wrongs  likewise  to  avenge. 
And  the  two  little  armies  of  foot- soldiers — the  Persians 
had  no  cavalry — defeat  the  innumerable  horsemen  of 
the  Mede^  take  the  old  king,  keep  him  in  honourable 
captivity,  and  so  change,  one  legend  says,  in  a  single 
battle,  the  fortunes  of  the  whole  East. 

And  then  begins  that  series  of  conquests  of  which 
we  know  hardly  anything,  save  the  fact  that  they 
were  made.  The  young  mountaineer  and  his  play- 
mates, whom  he  makes  his  generals  and  satraps, 
sweep  onward  towards  the  West,  teaching  their  men 
the  art  of  riding,  till  the  Persian  cavalry  becomes 
more  famous  than  the  Median  had  been.  They  gather 
to  them,  as  a  snowball  gathers  in  rolling,  the  picked 
youth  of  every  tribe  whom  they  overcome.  They 
knit  these  tribes  to  them  in  loyalty  and  affection  by 
that  righteousness — that  truthfulness  and  justice — 
for  which  Isaiah  in  his  grandest  lyric  strains  has  made 
them  illustrious  to  all  time;  which  Xenophon  has 
celebrated  in  like  manner  in  that  exquisite  book  of 
his — the  *^  CyropaBdia."*^  The  great  Lydian  kingdom 
of  Croesus — Asia  Minor  as  we  call  it  now — goes  down 
before  them.  Babylon  itself  goes  down,  after  that 
world-famed  siege  which  ended  in  Belshazzar^s  feast ; 
and  when  Cyrus  died — still  in  the  prime  of  life,  the 
legends  seem  to  say — he  left  a  coherent  and  well- 
organised  empire,  which  stretched  from  the  Mediter- 
ranean to  Hindostan. 

So  runs  the  tale,  which  to  me,  I  confess,  sounds 
probable  and  rational  enough.     It  may  not  do  so  to 


CYRUS,  THE  SERVANT  OF  THE  LORD. 

youj  for  it  has  not  to  many  learned  men.  Th^yl-ajje 
inclined  to  ^^  relegate  it  into  the  region  of  ipyth;  ^'  in  *  '^'  i 
plain  English^  to  call  old  Herodotus  a  liar^  or  at*'  Infest', 
a  dupe.  What  means  those  wise  men  can  have  at  ^  ( i! 
this  distance  of  more  than  2000  years^  of  knowing 
more  about  the  matter  than  Herodotus^  who  lived 
within  100  years  of  Cyrus^  I  for  myself  cannot  dis- 
cover. And  I  say  this  without  the  least  wish  to 
disparage  these  hypercritical  persons.  For  there  are 
— and  more  there  ought  to  be^  as  long  as  lies  and 
superstitions  remain  on  this  earth — a  class  of  thinkers 
w^ho  hold  in  just  suspicion  all  stories  which  savour  of 
the  sensational,  the  romantic,  even  the  dramatic. 
They  know  the  terrible  uses  to  which  appeals  to  the 
fancy  and  the  emotions  have  been  applied,  and  are 
still  applied  to  enslave  the  intellects^,  the  consciences, 
the  very  bodies  of  men  and  women.  They  dread  so 
much  from  experience  the  abuse  of  that  formula,  that 
^^  a  thing  is  so  beautiful  it  must  be  true,^^  that  they  are 
inclined  to  reply :  ^^  Rather  let  us  say  boldly,  it  is  so 
beautiful  that  it  cannot  be  true.  Let  us  mistrust^  or 
even  refuse  to  believe  a  jpriori,  and  at  first  sight,  all 
startling,  sensational,  even  poetic  tales,  and  accept 
nothing  as  history,  which  is  not  as  dull  as  the  ledger 
of  a  dry-goods^  store.'' ^  But  I  think  that  experience, 
both  in  nature  and  in  society,  are  against  that  difcch- 
water  philosophy.  The  weather,  being  governed  by 
laws,  ought  always  to  be  equable  and  normal,  and  yet 
you  have  whirlwinds,  droughts,  thunderstorms.  The 
share-market,  being  governed  by  laws,  ought  to  be 
always  equable  and  normal,  and  yet  you  have  startling 
transactions,  startling  panics,  startling  disclosures, 
and  a  whole  sensational  romance  of  commercial  crime 
and  folly.     Which  of  us  has  lived  to  be  fifty  years  old, 

T  2 


276  CYRUS,  THE   SERVANT   OF   THE  LORD. 

witliout  having  witnessed  in  private  life  sensation 
tragedies,  alas  !  sometimes  too  fearful  to  be  told,  or 
at  least  sensational  romances,  which  we  shall  take 
care  not  to  tell,  because  we  shall  not  be  believed  ? 
Let  the  ditch-water  philosophy  say  what  it  will,  human 
life  is  not  a  ditch,  but  a  wild  and  roaring  river,  flood- 
ing its  banks,  and  eating  out  new  channels  with  many 
a  landslip.  It  is  a  strange  world,  and  man,  a  strange 
animal,  guided,  it  is  true,  usually  by  most  common- 
place motives  ;  but,  for  that  reason,  ready  and  glad 
at  times  to  escape  from  them  and  their  dulness  and 
baseness ;  to  give  vent,  if  but  for  a  moment,  in  wild 
freedom,  to  that  demoniac  element,  which,  as  Goethe 
says,  underlies  his  nature  and  all  nature ;  and  to  prefer 
for  an  hour,  to  the  normal  and  respectable  ditch- 
water,  a  bottle  of  champagne  or  even  a  carouse  on 
fire-water,  let  the  consequences  be  what  they  may. 

How  else  shall  Ave  explain  such  a  phenomenon  as 
those  old  crusades  ?  Were  they  undertaken  for  any 
purpose,  commercial  or  other  ?  Certainly  not  for 
lightening  an  overburdened  population.  Nay,  is  not 
the  history  of  your  own  Mormons,  and  their  exodus 
into  the  far  West,  one  of  the  most  startling  instances 
which  the  world  has  seen  for  several  centuries,  of  the 
unexpected  and  incalculable  forces  which  lie  hid  in 
man  ?  Believe  me,  man^s  passions,  heated  to  igniting 
point,  rather  than  his  prudence  cooled  down  to  freez- 
ing point,  are  the  normal  causes  of  all  great  human 
movement.  And  a  truer  law  of  social  science  than 
any  that  political  economists  are  wont  to  lay  down,  is 
that  old  Dov'  e  la  donna  ?  of  the  Italian  judge,  who 
used  to  ask,  as  a  preliminary  to  every  case,  civil  or 
criminal,  which  was  brought  before  him,  Dov'  e  la 
donna  ?     "  Where  is  the  lady  ?  ^^  certain,  like  a  wise 


CYRUS,  THE    SERVANT   OF   THE   LORD.  277 

old  gentleman,  that  a  woman  was  most  probably  at 
the  bottom  of  the  matter. 

Strangeness  ?  Romance  ?  Did  any  of  you  ever 
read — if  you  have  not  you  should  read — Archbishop 
Whately^s  ^^  Historic  Doubts  about  the  Emperor 
Napoleon  the  First  '^  ?  Therein  the  learned  and  witty 
Archbishop  proved,  as  early  as  1819,  by  fair  use  of  the 
criticism  of  Mr.  Hume  and  the  Sceptic  School,  that 
the  whole  history  of  the  great  Napoleon  ought  to  be 
treated  by  wise  men  as  a  myth  and  a  romance,  that 
there  is  little  or  no  evidence  of  his  having  existed  at 
all ;  and  that  the  story  of  his  strange  successes  and 
strange  defeats  was  probably  invented  by  our  Govern- 
ment in  order  to  pander  to  the  vanity  of  the  English 
nation. 

I  will  say  this,  which  Archbishop  Whately,  in  a 
late  edition,  foreshadows,  wittily  enough — that  if  one 
or  two  thousand  years  hence,  when  the  history  of  the 
late  Emperor  Napoleon  the  Third,  his  rise  and  fall^ 
shall  come  to  be  subjected  to  critical  analysis  by  future 
Philistine  historians  of  New  Zealand  or  Australia, 
it  will  be  proved  by  them  to  be  utterly  mythical, 
incredible,  monstrous — and  that  all  the  more,  the 
more  the  actual  facts  remain  to  puzzle  their  unimagi- 
native brains.  What  will  they  make  two  thousand 
years  hence,  of  the  landing  at  Boulogne  with  the 
tame  eagle  ?  Will  not  that,  and  stranger  facts  still, 
but  just  as  true,  be  relegated  to  the  region  of  myth, 
with  the  dream  of  Astyages,  and  the  young  and 
princely  herdsman  playing  at  king  over  his  fellow- 
slaves  ? 

But  enough  of  this.  To  me  these  bits  of  romance 
often  seem  the  truest,  as  well  as  the  most  important 
portions  of  history. 


278  CYRUS,  THE   SERVANT   OF   THE   LORD. 

When  old  Herodotus  tells  me  how,  King  Astyages 
having  guarded  the  frontier,  Harpagus  sent  a  hunter 
to  young  Gyrus  with  a  fresh-killed  hare,  telling  him 
to  open  it  in  private ;  and  how,  sewn  up  in  it  was  the 
letter,  telling  him  that  the  time  to  rebel  was  come,  I 
am  inclined  to  say.  That  must  be  true.  It  is  so  beneath 
the  dignity  of  history,  so  quaint  and  unexpected,  that 
it  is  all  the  more  likely  oiot  to  have  been  invented. 

So  with  that  other  story — How  young  Cyrus, 
giving  out  that  his  grandfather  had  made  him  general 
of  the  Persians,  summoned  them  all,  each  man  with  a 
sickle  in  his  hand,  into  a  prairie  full  of  thorns,  and 
bade  them  clear  it  in  one  day ;  and  how  when  they, 
like  loyal  men,  had  finished,  he  bade  them  bathe,  and 
next  day  he  took  them  into  a  great  meadow  and 
feasted  them  with  corn  and  wine,  and  all  that  his 
father^s  farm  would  yield,  and  asked  them  which  day 
they  liked  best;  and,  when  they  answered  as  was  to 
be  expected,  how  he  opened  his  parable  and  told 
them,  ^^  Choose,  then,  to  work  for  the  Persians  like 
slaves,  or  to  be  free  with  me.^^ 

Such  a  tale  sounds  to  me  true.  It  has  the  very 
savour  of  the  parables  of  the  Old  Testament;  as 
have,  surely,  the  dreams  of  the  old  Sultan,  with  which 
the  tale  begins.  Do  they  not  put  us  in  mind  of  the 
dreams  of  Nebuchadnezzar,  in  the  Book  of  Daniel  ? 

Such  stories  are  actually  so  beautiful  that  they  are 
very  likely  to  be  true.  Understand  me,  I  only  say 
likely;  the  ditch-water  view  of  history  is  not  all 
wrong.  Its  advocates  are  right  in  saying  great 
historic  changes  are  not  produced  simply  by  one  great 
person,  by  one  remarkable  event.  They  have  been 
preparing,  perhaps  for  centuries.  They  are  the  result 
of  numberless  forces,  acting  according  to  laws,  which 


CYEUS,  THE   SERVANT   OF   THE   LORD.  279 

might  tave  been  foreseen,  and  will  be  foreseen,  when 
the  science  of  History  is  more  perfectly  understood. 

For  instance,  Cyrus  could  not  have  conquered  the 
Median  Empire  at  a  single  blow,  if  first  that  empire 
had  not  been  utterly  rotten;  and  next,  if  he  and 
his  handful  of  Persians  had  not  been  tempered  and 
sharpened,  by  long  hardihood,  to  the  finest  cutting 
edge. 

Yes,  there  were  all  the  materials  for  the  catas- 
trophe— the  cannon,  the  powder,  the  shot.  But  to 
say  that  the  Persians  must  have  conquered  the  Medes, 
even  if  Cyrus  had  never  lived,  is  to  say,  as  too  many 
philosophers  seem  to  me  to  say,  that,  given  cannon, 
powder,  and  shot,  it  will  fire  itself  off  some  day  if 
we  only  leave  it  alone  long  enough. 

It  may  be  so.  But  our  usual  experience  of  Nature 
and  Pact  is,  that  spontaneous  combustion  is  a  rare  and 
exceptional  phenomenon;  that  if  a  cannon  is  to  be 
fired,  someone  must  arise  and  pull  the  trigger.  And 
I  believe  that  in  Society  and  Politics,  when  a  great 
event  is  ready  to  be  done,  someone  must  come  and  do 
it — do  it,  perhaps,  half  unwittingly,  by  some  single 
rash  act — like  that  first  fatal  shot  fired  by  an  electric 
spark. 

But  to  return  to  Cyrus  and  his  Persians. 

I  know  not  whether  the  "  Cyropgedia  ^^  is  much 
read  in  your  schools  and  universities.  But  it  is  one  of 
the  books  which  I  should  like  to  see,  either  in  a 
translation  or  its  own  exquisite  Greek,  in  the  hands  of 
every  young  man.  It  is  not  all  fact.  It  is  but  a 
historic  romance.  But  it  is  better  than  history.  It  is 
an  ideal  book,  like  Sidney  ^s  ^^  Arcadia  ^^  or  Spenser^ s 
^^  Fairy  Queen  "" — the  ideal  self-education  of  an  ideal 
liero.     And  the  moral  of  the  book — ponder  it  well,  all 


280  CYRUS,  THE    SERVANT   OF  THE   LORD. 

young  men  who  have  tlie  chance  or  the  hope  of 
exercising  authority  among  your  fellow-men — the 
noble  and  most  Christian  moral  of  that  heathen  book 
is  this  :  that  the  path  to  solid  and  beneficent  influence 
over  our  fellow-men  lies^  not  through  brute  force,  not 
through  cupidity _,  but  through  the  highest  morality; 
through  justice,  truthfulness,  humanity,  self-denial, 
modesty,  courtesy,  and  all  which  makes  man  or  woman 
lovely  in  the  eyes  of  mortals  or  of  God. 

Yes,  the  "  Cyropa3dia^^  is  a  noble  book,  about  a 
noble  personage.  But  I  cannot  forget  that  there  are 
nobler  words  by  far  concerning  that  same  noble 
personage,  in  the  magnificent  series  of  Hebrew  Lyrics, 
which  iDegins  *^  Comfort  ye,  comfort  ye,  my  people^^ 
saith  the  Lord  '^ — in  which  the  inspired  poet,  watching 
the  rise  of  Cyrus  and  his  Puritans,  and  the  fall  of 
Babylon,  and  the  idolatries  of  the  East,  and  the 
coming  deliverance  of  his  own  countrymen,  speaks 
of  the  Persian  hero  in  words  so  grand  that  they  have 
been  often  enough  applied,  and  with  all  fitness,  to  one 
greater  than  Cyrus,  and  than  all  men : 


Who  raised  up  the  righteous  man  from  the  East, 

And  called  him  to  attend  his  steps  ? 

Who  subdued  nations  at  his  presence, 

And  gave  him  dominion  over  kings  ? 

And  made  them  Uke  the  dust  before  his  sword, 

And  the  driven  stubble  before  his  bow  ? 

He  pursueth  them,  he  passeth  in  safety. 

By  a  way  never  trodden  before  by  his  feet. 

Who  hath  performed  and  made  these  things, 

Calling  the  generations  from  the  beginning  ? 

I,  Jehovah,  the  first  and  the  last,  I  am  the  same. 

Behold  my  servant,  whom  I  will  uphold  ; 
My  chosen,  in  whom  my  soul  delighteth; 


CYEUS,  THE    SEKYANT    OF   THE   LOED.  281 

I  will  make  my  spirit  rest  upon  him, 

And  he  shall  publish  judgment  to  the  nations. 

He  shall  not  cry  aloud,  nor  clamour, 

Nor  cause  his  voice  to  be  heard  in  the  streets. 

The  bruised  reed  he  shall  not  break, 

And  the  smoking  flax  he  shall  not  quench. 

He  shall  publish  justice,  and  establish  it. 

His  force  shall  not  be  abated,  nor  broken. 

Until  he  has  firmly  seated  justice  in  the  earth, 

And  the  distant  nations  shall  wait  for  his  Law. 

Thus  saith  the  God,  even  Jehovah, 

Who  created  the  heavens,  and  stretched  them  out ; 

Who  spread  abroad  the  earth,  and  its  produce, 

I,  Jehovah,  have  called  thee  for  a  righteous  end, 

And  I  will  take  hold  of  thy  hand,  and  preserve  thee. 

And  I  will  give  thee  for  a  covenant  to  the  people, 

And  for  a  light  to  the  nations ; 

To  open  the  eyes  of  the  blind, 

To  bring  the  captives  out  of  prison, 

And  from  the  dungeon  those  who  dwell  in  darkness. 

I  am  Jehovah — that  is  my  name ; 

And  my  glory  will  I  not  give  to  another, 

Nor  my  praise  to  the  graven  idols. 

Who  saith  to  Cyrus — Thou  art  my  shepherd, 

And  he  shall  fulfil  all  my  pleasure  : 

Who  saith  to  Jerusalem — Thou  shalt  be  built; 

And  to  the  Temple — Thou  shalt  be  founded. 

Thus  saith  Jehovah  to  his  anointed. 

To  Cyrus  whom  I  hold  fast  by  his  right  hand, 

That  I  may  subdue  nations  under  him, 

And  loose  the  loins  of  kings ; 

That  I  may  open  before  him  the  two-leaved  doors. 

And  the  gates  shall  not  be  shut ; 

I  will  go  before  thee 

And  bring  the  mountains  low. 

The  gates  of  brass  will  I  break  in  sunder. 

And  the  bars  of  iron  hew  down. 

And  I  will  give  thee  the  treasures  of  darkness. 

And  the  hoards  hid  deep  in  secret  places. 

That  thou  may  est  know  that  I  am  Jehovah. 


282  CYRUS,  THE   SERVANT   OF   THE   LORD. 

I  have  siirnamed  thee,  though  thou  knowest  not  me. 

I  am  Jehovah,  and  none  else  ; 

Beside  me  there  is  no  God. 

I  will  gird  thee,  though  thou  hast  not  known  me. 

That  they  may  know  from  the  rising  of  the  sun, 

And  from  the  west,  that  there  is  none  beside  me  ; 

I  am  Jehovah,  and  none  else  ; 

Forming  light  and  creating  darkness ; 

Forming  peace,  and  creating  evil. 

I,  Jehovah,  make  all  these. 

This  is  the  Hebrew  prophet ^s  conception  of  the 
great  Puritan  of  the  Old  World  who  went  forth  with 
such  a  commission  as  this^  to  destroy  the  idols  of  the 
East,  while 

The  isles  saw  that,  and  feared. 

And  the  ends  of  the  earth  were  afraid  ; 

They  drew  near,  they  came  together  ; 

Everyone  helped  his  neighbour. 

And  said  to  his  brother,  Be  of  good  courage. 

The  carver  encouraged  the  smith. 

He  that  smoothed  with  the  hammer 

Him  that  smote  on  the  anvil ; 

Saying  of  the  solder,  It  is  good ; 

And  fixing  the  idol  with  nails,  lest  it  be  moved ; 

But  all  in  vain ;  for  as  the  poet  goes  on  : 

Bel  bowed  down,  and  Nebo  stooped ; 

Their  idols  were  upon  the  cattle, 

A  burden  to  the  weary  beast. 

They  stoop,  they  bow  down  together  ; 

They  could  not  deliver  their  own  charge  ; 

Themselves  are  gone  into  captivity. 

And  what^  to  return,  what  was  the  end  of  the  great 
Cyrus  and  of  his  empire  ? 

Alas,  alas  !  as  with  all  human  glory,  the  end  was 
not  as  the  beginning. 


CYEUS,  THE    SERVANT   OF   THE   LORD.  283 

We  are  scarce  bound  to  believe  positively  the  story 
how  Cyrus  made  one  war  too  many,  and  was  cut  off 
in  the  Scythian  deserts,  falling  before  the  arrows  of 
mere  savages ;  and  how  their  queen,  Tomyris,  poured 
blood  down  the  throat  of  the  dead  corpse,  with  the 
words,  ^^  Glut  thyself  with  the  gore  for  which  thou  hast 
thirsted/^  But  it  may  be  true — for  Xenophon  states 
it  expressly,  and  with  detail — that  Cyrus^  from  the 
very  time  of  his  triumph,  became  an  Eastern  despot, 
a  sultan  or  a  shah,  living  apart  from  his  people  in 
mysterious  splendour,  in  the  vast  fortified  palace  which 
he  built  for  himself;  and  imitating  and  causing  his 
nobles  and  satraps  to  imitate,  in  all  but  vice  and 
effeminacy,  the  very  Medes  whom  he  had  conquered. 
And  of  this  there  is  no  doubt — that  his  sons  and  their 
empire  ran  rapidly  through  that  same  vicious  circle  of 
corruption  to  which  all  despotisms  are  doomed,  and 
became  within  250  years,  even  as  the  Medes,  the 
Chaldeans,  the  Lydians,  whom  they  had  conquered, 
children  no  longer  of  Ahura  Mazda,  but  of  Ahriman, 
of  darkness  and  not  of  light,  to  be  conquered  by 
Alexander  and  his  Greeks  even  more  rapidly  and  more 
shamefully  than  they  had  conquered  the  Bast. 

This  is  the  short  epic  of  the  Persian  Empire,  ending, 
alas !  as  all  human  epics  are  wont  to  end,  sadly,  if  not 
shamefally. 

But  let  me  ask  you.  Did  I  say  too  much,  when  I 
said,  that  to  these  Persians  we  owe  that  we  are  here 
to-night  ? 

I  do  not  say  that  without  them  we  should  not  have 
been  here.  God,  I  presume,  when  He  is  minded  to  do 
anything,  has  more  than  one  way  of  doing  it. 

But  that  we  are  now  the  last  link  in  a  chain  of 
causes  and  effects  which  reaches  as  far  back  as  the 


284  CYRUS,  THE   SERVANT   OF   THE   LORD. 

emigration  of  tlie  Persians  soutliward  from  the  plateau 
of  Pamir,  we  cannot  doubt. 

For  see.  By  the  fall  of  Babylon  and  its  empire  the 
Jews  were  freed  from  their  captivity — large  numbers 
of  them  at  least — and  sent  home  to  their  own  Jerusalem. 
What  motives  prompted  Cyrus,  and  Darius  after  him, 
to  do  that  deed  ? 

Those  who  like  to  impute  the  lowest  motives  may 
say,  if  they  will,  that  Daniel  and  the  later  Isaiah  found 
it  politic  to  worship  the  rising  sun,  and  flatter  the 
Persian  conquerors  :  and  that  Cyrus  and  Darius  in 
turn  were  glad  to  see  Jerusalem  rebuilt,  as  an  im- 
pregnable frontier  fortress  between  them  and  Egypt. 
Be  it  so ;  I,  who  wish  to  talk  of  things  noble,  pure, 
lovely,  and  of  good  report,  would  rather  point  you 
once  more  to  the  magnificent  poetry  of  the  later 
Isaiah  which  commences  at  the  40th  chapter  of  the 
Book  of  Isaiah,  and  say — There,  upon  the  very  face  of 
the  document,  stands  written  the  fact  that  the  sympathy 
between  the  faithful  Persian  and  the  faithful  Jew — the 
two  puritans  of  the  Old  World,  the  two  haters  of  lies, 
idolatries,  superstitions,  was  actually  as  intense  as  it 
ought  to  have  been,  as  it  must  have  been. 

Be  that  as  it  may,  the  return  of  the  Jews  to 
Jerusalem  preserved  for  us  the  Old  Testament,  while 
it  restored  to  them  a  national  centre,  a  sacred  city, 
like  that  of  Delphi  to  the  Grreeks,  Rome  to  the  Romans, 
Mecca  to  the  Muslim,  loyalty  to  which  prevented  their 
being  utterly  absorbed  by  the  more  civilised  Eastern 
races  among  whom  they  had  been  scattered  abroad  as 
colonies  of  captives. 

Then  another,  and  a  seemingly  needful  link  of 
cause  and  effect  ensued :  Alexander  of  Macedon 
destroyed  the  Persian  Empire,  and  the  East  became 


CYRUS,  THE   SERVANT   OF   THE   LORD.  285 

Greek,  and  Alexandria_,  rather  tlian  Jerusalem,  became 
tlie  head- quarters  of  Jewish,  learning.  But  for  that 
very  cause,  the  Scriptures  were  not  left  inaccessible  to 
the  mass  of  mankind,  like  the  old  Pehlevi  liturgies  of 
the  Zend-avesta,  or  the  old  Sanscrit  Vedas,  in  an 
obsolete  and  hieratic  tongue,  but  were  translated  into, 
and  continued  in,  the  then  all  but  world-wide  Hellenic 
speech,  which  was  to  the  ancient  world  what  French 
is  to  the  modern. 

Then  the  East  became  Roman,  without  losing  its 
Greek  speech.  And  under  the  wide  domination  of 
that  later  Roman  Empire — which  had  subdued  and 
organised  the  whole  known  world,  save  the  Parthian 
descendants  of  those  old  Persians,  and  our  old  Teutonic 
forefathers  in  their  German  forests  and  on  their 
Scandinavian  shores — that  Divine  book  was  carried  far 
and  wide.  East  and  West,  and  Souths  from  the  heart 
of  Abyssinia  to  the  mountains  of  Armenia,  and  to  the 
isles  of  the  ocean,  beyond  Britain  itself  to  Ireland  and 
to  the  Hebrides. 

And  that  book — so  strangely  coinciding  with  the 
old  creed  of  the  earlier  Persians — that  book^  long 
misunderstood,  long  overlain  by  the  dust,  and  over- 
grown by  the  parasitic  fungi  of  centuries,  that  book 
it  was  which  sent  to  these  trans- Atlantic  shores  the 
founders  of  your  great  nation.  That  book  gave  them 
their  instinct  of  Freedom,  tempered  by  reverence  for 
Law.  That  book  gave  them  their  hatred  of  idolatry ; 
and  made  them  not  only  say  but  act  upon  their  own 
words,  with  these  old  Persians  and  with  the  Jewish 
prophets  alike,  Sacrifice  and  burnt  offering  thou 
wouldst  not;  Then  said  we,  Lo,  we  come.  In  the 
volume  of  the  book  it  is ,  written  of  us,  that  we  come 
to  do  thy  will,  0  God.     Yes,  long  and  fantastic  is  the 


286  CYRUS,  THE   SERVANT   OF   THE   LORD. 

cliaiii  of  causes  and  effects^  whicli  links  you  here 
to  the  old  heroes  who  came  down  from  Central  Asia, 
because  the  land  had  grown  so  wondrous  cold,  that 
there  were  ten  months  of  winter  to  two  of  summer; 
and  when  simply  after  warmth  and  life,  and  food  for 
them  and  for  their  flocks,  they  wandered  forth  to  found 
and  help  to  found  a  spiritual  kingdom. 

And  even  in  their  migration,  far  back  in  these  dim 
and  mystic  ages,  have  we  found  the  earliest  link  of 
the  long  chain  ?  Not  so.  What  if  the  legend  of 
the  change  of  climate  be  the  dim  recollection  of  an 
enormous  physical  fact  ?  What  if  it,  and  the  gradual 
depopulation  of  the  whole  north  of  Asia,  be  owing,  as 
geologists  now  suspect,  to  the  slow  and  age-long 
uprise  of  the  whole  of  Siberia,  thrusting  the  warm 
Arctic  sea  farther  and  farther  to  the  northward,  and 
placing  between  it  and  the  Highlands  of  Thibet  an 
ever-increasing  breadth  of  icy  land,  destroying  animals, 
and  driving  whole  races  southward,  in  search  of  the 
summer  and  the  sun  ? 

What  if  the  first  link  in  the  chain,  as  yet  con-^ 
ceivable  by  man,  should  be  the  cosmic  changes  in  the 
distribution  of  land  and  water,  which  filled  the  mouths 
of  the  Siberian  rivers  with  frozen  carcases  of  woolly 
mammoth  and  rhinoceros;  and  those  again,  doubt  it 
not,  of  other  revolutions,  reaching  back  and  back,  and 
on  and  on,  into  the  infinite  unknown  ?  Why  not  ?' 
For  so  are  all  human  destinies 

Bound  with  gold  chains  unto  the  throne  of  God. 


ANCIENT  CIVILISATION. 


ANCIENT  CIVILISATION/ 


There  is  a  theory  abroad  in  tlie  world  just  now  about 
the  origin  of  the  human  race,  which  has  so  many- 
patent  and  powerful  physiological  facts  to  support  it 
that  we  must  not  lightly  say  that  it  is  absurd  or  im- 
possible; and  that  is,  that  man^s  mortal  body  and 
brain  were  derived  from  some  animal  and  ape-like 
creature.  Of  that  I  am  not  going  to  speak  now.  My 
subject  is  :  How  this  creature  called  man,  from  what- 
ever source  derived,  became  civilised,  rational,  and 
moral.  And  I  am  sorry  to  say  that  there  is  tacked  on 
by  many  to  the  first  theory,  another  which  does  not 
follow  from  it,  and  which  has  really  nothing  to  do 
with  it,  and  it  is  this  :  That  man,  with  all  his  won- 
derful and  mysterious  aspirations,  always  unfulfilled 
yet  always  precious,  at  once  his  torment  and  his  joy, 
his  very  hope  of  everlasting  life;  that  man,  I  say, 
developed  himself,  unassisted,  out  of  a  state  of  pri- 
maeval brutishness,  simply  by  calculations  of  pleasure 
and  pain,  by  observing  what  actions  would  pay  in  the 
long  run  and  what  would  not ;  and  so  learnt  to  con- 
quer his  selfishness  by  a  more  refined  and  extended 
selfishness,  and  exchanged  his  brutality  for  worldli- 
*  This  lecture  was  given  in  America  in  1874. 
VOL.  I. — H.  E.  U 


290  '      ANCIENT   CIVILISATION. 

ness^  and  then,  in  a  few  instances,  Ms  worldliness  for 
next-worldliness.  I  liope  I  need  not  say  that  I  do 
not  believe  this  theory.  If  I  did,  I  could  not  be  a 
Christian,  I  think,  nor  a  philosopher  either.  At  least, 
if  I  thought  that  human  civilisation  had  sprung  from 
such  a  dunghill  as  that,  I  should,  in  honour  to  my 
race,  say  nothing  about  it,  here  or  elsewhere. 

Why  talk  of  the  shame  of  our  ancestors  ?  I  want 
to  talk  of  their  honour  and  glory.  I  want  to  talk,  if  I 
talk  at  all,  about  great  times,  about  noble  epochs^ 
noble  movements,  noble  deeds,  and  noble  folk  ;  about 
times  in  which  the  human  race — it  may  be  through 
many  mistakes,  alas  !  and  sin,  and  sorrow,  and  blood- 
shed— struggled  up  one  step  higher  on  those  great 
stairs  which,  as  we  hope,  lead  upward  towards  the 
far-off  city  of  God ;  the  perfect  polity,  the  perfect 
civilisation,  the  perfect  religion,  which  is  eternal  in 
the  heavens. 

Of  great  men,  then,  and  noble  deeds  I  want  to 
speak.  I  am  bound  to  do  so  first,  in  courtesy  to  my 
hearers.  For  in  choosing  such  a  subject  I  took  for 
granted  a  nobleness  and  greatness  of  mind  in  them 
which  can  appreciate  and  enjoy  the  contemplation  of 
that  which  is  lofty  and  heroic,  and  that  which  is  useful 
indeed,  though  not  to  the  purses  merely  or  the  mouths 
of  men,  but  to  their  intellects  and  spirits  ;  that  highest 
philosophy  which,  though  she  can  (as  has  been  sneer- 
ingly  said  of  her)  bake  no  bread,  she — and  she  alone, 
can  at  least  do  this — make  men  worthy  to  eat  the 
bread  which  God  has  given  them. 

I  am  bound  to  speak  on  such  subjects,  because  I 
have  never  yet  met,  or  read  of,  the  human  company 
who  did  not  require,  now  and  then  at  least,  being 
reminded   of   such   times   and   such   personages  —  of 


ANCIENT   CIVILISATH 


whatsoever  things  are  just^  pure,  ,jfrue^^yeiy;^  and  of  ^  / 
good  report,  if  there  be  any  maiij^ood-^nd  any  ^^^^ 
to  think,  as  St.  Paul  bids  us  all,  <5(f  sVeJl  jhings,  that^'  ^ 


we  may  keep  up  in  our  minds  as  mu&hr  as  p(5ssible  a 
lofty  standard,  a  pure  ideal,  instead  of  sinking  to  the 
mere  selfish  standard  which  judges  all  things,  even 
those  of  the  world  to  come,  by  profit  and  by  loss,  and 
into  that  sordid  frame  of  mind  in  which  a  man  grows 
to  believe  that  the  world  is  constructed  of  bricks  and 
timber,  and  kept  going  by  the  price  of  stocks. 

We  are  all  tempted,  and  the  easier  and  more 
prosperous  we  are,  the  more  we  are  tempted,  to  fall 
into  that  sordid  and  shallow  frame  of  mind.  Sordid 
even  when  its  projects  are  most  daring,  its  outward 
luxuries  most  refined ;  and  shallow,  even  when  most 
acute,  when  priding  itself  most  on  its  knowledge  of 
human  nature,  and  of  the  secret  springs  which,  so 
it  dreams,  move  the  actions  and  make  the  history  of 
nations  and  of  men.  All  are  tempted  that  way,  even 
the  noblest-hearted.  Adhcesit  jpavimento  venter,  says 
the  old  psalmist.  I  am  growing  like  the  snake, 
crawling  in  the  dust,  and  eating  the  dust  in  which  I 
crawl.  I  try  to  lift  up  my  eyes  to  the  heavens,  to  the 
true,  the  beautiful,  the  good,  the  eternal  nobleness 
which  was  before  all  time,  and  shall  be  still  when 
time  has  passed  away.  But  to  lift  up  myself  is  what  I 
cannot  do.  Who  will  help  me  ?  Who  will  quicken 
me  ?  as  our  old  English  tongue  has  it.  Who  will  give 
me  life  ?  The  true,  pure,  lofty  human  life  which  I 
did  not  inherit  from  the  primaeval  ape,  which  the  ape- 
nature  in  me  is  for  ever  trying  to  stifle,  and  make  me 
that  which  I  know  too  well  I  could  so  easily  become 
— a  cunninger  and  more  dainty-featured  brute  ?  Death 
itself,  which  seems  at  times  so  fair,  is  fair  because  even 

II  2 


292  ANCIENT   CIVILISATION. 

it  may  raise  me  up  and  deliver  me  from  the  burden 
of  this  animal  and  mortal  body : 

'Tis  life,  not  death  for  which  I  pant ; 
'Tis  Hfe,  whereof  my  nerves  are  scant ; 
More  life,  and  fuller,  that  I  want. 

Man  ?  I  am  a  man  not  by  reason  of  my  bones  and 
muscles,  nerves  and  brain,  which  I  have  in  common 
with  apes  and  dogs  and  horses.  I  am  a  man — thou 
art  a  man  or  woman — not  because  we  have  a  flesh 
— Grod  forbid  !  but  because  there  is  a  spirit  in  us,  a 
divine  spark  and  ray,  which  nature  did  not  give,  and 
which  nature  cannot  take  away.  And  therefore,  while 
I  live  on  earth,  I  will  live  to  the  spirit,  not  to  the 
flesh,  that  I  may  be,  indeed^,  a  man ;  and  this  same 
gross  flesh,  this  animal  ape-nature  in  me,  shall  be  the 
very  element  in  me  which  I  will  renounce,  defy, 
despise ;  at  least,  if  I  am  minded  to  be,  not  a  merely 
higher  savage,  but  a  truly  higher  civilised  man. 
Civilisation  with  me  shall  mean,  not  more  wealth, 
more  finery,  more  self-indulgence — even  more  aesthetic 
and  artistic  luxury ;  but  more  virtue,  more  knowledge, 
more  self-control,  even  though  I  earn  scanty  bread  by 
heavy  toil;  and  when  I  compare  the  Cassar  of  Rome 
or  the  great  king,  whether  of  Egypt,  Babylon,  or 
Persia,  with  the  hermit  of  the  Thebaid,  starving  in  his 
frock  of  cameFs  hair,  with  his  soul  fixed  on  the 
ineffable  glories  of  the  unseen,  and  striving,  however 
wildly  and  fantastically,  to  become  an  angel  and  not 
an  ape,  I  will  say  the  hermit,  and  not  the  Cassar,  is  the 
civilised  man. 

There  are  plenty  of  histories   of  civilisation   and 
theories  of  civilisation  abroad  in  the  world  just  now. 


ANCIENT   CIVILISATION.  293 

and  whicli  profess  to  show  you  how  the  primaeval 
savage  has^  or  at  least  may  have^  become  the  civilised 
man.  For  my  part^  with  all  due  and  careful  considera- 
tion^ I  confess  I  attach  very  little  value  to  any  of 
them :  and  for  this  simple  reason  that  we  have  no 
facts.     The  facts  are  lost. 

Of  course^  if  you  assume  a  proposition  as  certainly 
true^  it  is  easy  enough  to  prove  that  proposition  to  be 
true^  at  least  to  your  own  satisfaction.  If  you  assert 
with  the  old  proverb^  that  you  may  make  a  silk  purse 
out  of  a  sow^s  ear,  you  will  be  stupider  than  I  dare 
suppose  anyone  here  to  be,  if  you  cannot  invent  for 
yourselves  all  the  intermediate  stages  of  the  transfor- 
mation, however  startling.  And,  indeed,  if  modern 
philosophers  had  stuck  more  closely  to  this  old  pro- 
verb, and  its  defining  verb  ^^  make,^^  and  tried  to  show 
how  some  person  or  persons — let  them  be  who  they 
may — men,  angels,  or  gods — made  the  sow's  ear  into 
the  silk  purse,  and  the  savage  into  the  sage — they 
might  have  pleaded  that  they  were  still  trying  to  keep 
their  feet  upon  the  firm  ground  of  actual  experience. 
But  while  their  theory  is,  that  the  sow's  ear  grew 
into  a  silk  purse  of  itself,  and  yet  unconsciously  and 
without  any  intention  of  so  bettering  itself  in  life, 
why,  I  think  that  those  who  have  studied  the  history 
which  lies  behind  them,  and  the  poor  human  nature 
which  is  struggling,  and  sinning,  and  sorrowing,  and 
failing  around  them,  and  which  seems  on  the  greater 
part  of  this  planet  going  downwards  and  not  upwards, 
and  by  no  means  bettering  itself,  save  in  the  increase 
of  opera-houses,  liquor-bars,  and  gambling-tables,  and 
that  which  pertaineth  thereto  ;  then  we,  I  think,  may 
be  excused  if  we  say  with  the  old  Stoics — eVe^^oi) — I 
withhold  my  judgment.      I  know  nothing  about  the 


294  ANCIENT   CIVILISATION. 

matter  yet;  and  you,  oli  my  imaginative  though  learned 
friends^  know  I  suspect  very  little  either. 

Eldest  of  things,  Divine  Equality  : 

BO  -sang  poor  Shelley^  and  with  a  certain  truth.  For 
if,  as  I  believe,  the  human  race  sprang  from  a  single 
pair,  there  must  have  been  among  their  individual 
descendants  an  equality  far  greater  than  any  which 
has  been  known  on  earth  during  historic  times.  But 
that  equality  was  at  best  the  infantile  innocence  of 
the  primary  race,  which  faded  away  in  the  race  as 
quickly,  alas  !  as  it  does  in  the  individual  child. 
Divine — therefore  it  was  one  of  the  first  blessings 
which  man  lost ;  one  of  the  last,  I  fear,  to  which  he 
will  return  ;  that  to  which  civilisation,  even  at  its  best 
yet  known,  has  not  yet  attained,  save  here  and  there 
for  short  periods;  but  towards  which  it  is  striving  as 
an  ideal  goal,  and,  as  I  trust,  not  in  vain. 

The  eldest  of  things  which  we  see  actually  as 
history  is  not  equality,  but  an  already  developed 
hideous  inequality,  trying  to  perpetuate  itself,  and 
yet  by  a  most  divine  and  gracious  law,  destroying 
itself  by  the  very  means  which  it  uses  to  keep  itself 
alive. 

'*  There  were  giants  in  the  earth  in  those  days. 
And  Nimrod  began  to  be  a  mighty  one  in  the 
earth  ''— 

A  mighty  hunter  ;  and  his  game  was  man. 

No ;  it  is  not  equality  which  we  see  through  the 
dim  mist  of  bygone  ages. 

What  we  do  see  is — I  know  not  whether  you  will 
think  me  superstitious  or  old-fashioned,  but  so  I  hold 
— very  much  what  the  earlier  books  of  the  Bible  show 


ANCIENT   CIVILISATION.  295 

US  under  symbolic  laws.  Greek  histories,  Eoman 
histories,  Egyptian  histories,  Eastern  histories,  inscrip- 
tions, national  epics,  legends,  fragments  of  legends — 
in  the  New  World  as  in  the  Old — all  tell  the  same 
story.  Not  the  story  without  an  end,  but  the  story 
without  a  beginning.  As  in  the  Hindoo  cosmogony, 
the  world  stands  on  an  elephant,  and  the  elephant 
on  a  tortoise,  and  the  tortoise  on — what  ?  No  man 
knows.  I  do  not  know.  I  only  assert  deliberately, 
waiting,  as  Napoleon  says,  till  the  world  come  round 
to  me,  that  the  tortoise  does  not  stand — as  is  held  by 
certain  anthropologists,  some  honoured  by  me,  some 
personally  dear  to  me — upon  the  savages  who  chipped 
flints  and  fed  on  mammoth  and  reindeer  in  North- 
Western  Europe,  shortly  after  the  age  of  ice,  a  few 
hundred  thousand  years  ago.  These  sturdy  little 
fellows — the  kinsmen  probably  of  the  Esquimaux  and 
Lapps — could  have  been  but  the  av ant-couriers,  or 
more  probably  the  fugitives  from  the  true  mass  of 
mankind — spreading  northward  from  the  Tropics  into 
climes  becoming,  after  the  long  catastrophe  of  the  age 
of  ice,  once  more  genial  enough  to  support  men  who 
knew  what  decent  comfort  was,  and  were  strong 
enough  to  get  the  same,  by  all  means  fair  or  foul.  No. 
The  tortoise  of  the  human  race  does  not  stand  on  a 
savage.  The  savage  may  stand  on  an  ape -like  creature. 
I  do  not  say  that  he  does  not.  I  do  not  say  that  he 
does.  I  do  not  know ;  and  no  man  knows.  But  at 
least  I  say  that  the  civilised  man  and  his  world  stand 
not  upon  creatures  like  to  any  savage  now  known 
upon  the  earth.  For  first,  it  seems  to  be  most  un- 
likely ;  and  next,  and  more  important  to  an  inductive 
philosopher,  there  is  no  proof  of  it.  I  see  no  savages 
becoming  really  civilised   men — that   is,   not  merely 


296  ANCIENT   CIVILISATION. 

men  wlio  will  ape  the  outside  of  our  so-called  civilisa- 
tion, even  absorb  a  few  of  our  ideas  ;  not  merely  that ; 
but  truly  civilised  men  who  will  think  for  themselves, 
invent  for  themselves,  act  for  themselves ;  and  when 
the  sacred  lamp  of  light  and  truth  has  been  passed 
into  their  hands,  carry  it  on  unextinguished,  and 
transmit  it  to  their  successors  without  running  back 
every  moment  to  get  it  relighted  by  those  from  whom 
they  received  it :  and  who  are  bound — remember  that 
— patiently  and  lovingly  to  relight  it  for  them  ;  to  give 
freely  to  all  their  fellow-men  of  that  which  God  has 
given  to  them  and  to  their  ancestors ;  and  let  God,  not 
man,  be  judge  of  how  much  the  Eed  Indian  or  the 
Polynesian,  the  Caffre  or  the  Chinese,  is  capable  of 
receiving  and  of  using. 

Moreover,  in  history  there  is  no  record,  absolutely 
no  record,  as  far  as  I  am  aware,  of  any  savage  tribe 
civilising  itself.  It  is  a  bold  saying.  I  stand  by  my 
assertion :  most  happy  to  find  myself  confuted,  even 
in  a  single  instance ;  for  my  being  wrong  would  give 
me,  what  I  can  have  no  objection  to  possess,  a  higher 
opinion  than  I  have  now,  of  the  unassisted  capabilities 
of  my  fellow-men. 

But  civilisation  must  have  begun  somewhen,  some- 
where, with  some  person,  or  some  family,  or  some 
nation  ;  and  how  did  it  begin  ? 

I  have  said  already  that  I  do  not  know.  But  I 
have  had  my  dream — like  the  philosopher — and  as  I 
have  not  been  ashamed  to  tell  it  elsewhere,  I  shall  not 
be  ashamed  to  tell  it  here.     And  it  is  this  : 

What  if  the  beginnings  of  true  civilisation  in 
this  unique,  abnormal,  diseased,  unsatisfied,  incom- 
prehensible, and  truly  miraculous  and  supernatural 
race  we  call  man,  had  been  literally,  and  in  actual  fact. 


ANCIENT   CIVILISATION.  297 

miraculous  and  supernatural  likewise  ?  What  if  that 
be  the  true  key  to  the  mystery  of  humanity  and  its 
origin  ?  What  if  the  few  first  chapters  of  the  most 
ancient  and  most  sacred  book  should  pointy  under 
whatever  symbols^  to  the  actual  and  the  only  possible 
origin  of  civilisation,  the  education  of  a  man,  or  a 
family  by  beings  of  some  higher  race  than  man  ?  What 
if  the  old  Puritan  doctrine  of  Election  should  be  even 
of  a  deeper  and  wider  application  than  divines  have 
been  wont  to  think  ?  What  if  individuals,  if  peoples, 
have  been  chosen  out  from  time  to  time  for  a  special 
illumination,  that  they  might  be  the  lights  of  the 
earth,  and  the  salt  of  the  world  ?  What  if  they  have, 
each  in  their  turn,  abused  that  divine  teaching  to 
make  themselves  the  tyrants,  instead  of  the  ministers, 
of  the  less  enlightened  ?  To  increase  the  inequalities 
of  nature  by  their  own  selfishness,  instead  of  decreas- 
ing them,  into  the  equality  of  grace,  by  their  own 
self-sacrifice  ?  What  if  the  Bible  after  all  was  right, 
and  even  more  right  than  we  were  taught  to  think  ? 

So  runs  my  dream.  If,  after  I  have  confessed  to 
it,  you  think  me  still  worth  listening  to,  in  this 
enlightened  nineteenth  century,  I  will  go  on. 

At  all  events,  what  we  see  at  the  beginning  of  all 
known  and  half-known  history,  is  not  savagery,  but 
high  civilisation,  at  least  of  an  outward  and  material 
kind.  Do  you  demur  ?  Then  recollect,  I  pray  you^ 
that  the  three  oldest  peoples  known  to  history  on 
this  planet  are  Egypt,  China,  Hindostan.  The  first 
glimpses  of  the  world  are  always  like  those  which  the 
book  of  Genesis  gives  us ;  like  those  which  your  own 
continent  gives  us.  As  it  was  400  years  ago  in 
America,  so  it  was  in  North  Africa  and  in  Asia  4000 
years  ago,  or  40,000  for  aught  I  know.     Nay,  if  any- 


•298  ANCIENT   CIVILISATION. 

•one  should  ask — And  why  not  400^000  years  ago,  on 
Miocene  continents  long  sunk  beneath  tlie  Tropic  sea  ? 
I  for  one  have  no  rejoinder  save — We  have  no  proofs 
as  yet. 

There  loom  up,  out  of  the  darkness  of  legend,  into 
the  as  yet  dim  dawn  of  history,  what  the  old  Arabs 
call  Races  of  pre-Adamite  Sultans — colossal  monar- 
chies, with  fixed  and  often  elaborate  laws,  customs, 
<3reeds ;  with  aristocracies,  priesthoods — seemingly 
always  of  a  superior  and  conquering  race;  with  a  mass 
of  common  folk,  whether  free  or  half-free,  composed 
of  older  conquered  races  ;  of  imported  slaves  too,  and 
their  descendants. 

But  whence  comes  the  royal  race,  the  aristocracy, 
the  priesthood  ?  You  inquire,  and  you  find  that  they 
usually  know  not  themselves.  They  are  usually — I 
had  almost  dared  to  say,  always — foreigners.  They 
have  crossed  the  neighbouring  mountains.  They  have 
come  by  sea,  like  Dido  to  Carthage,  like  Manco  Oassae 
and  Mama  Bello  to  America,  and  they  have  sometimes 
forgotten  when.  At  least  they  are  wiser,  stronger, 
fairer,  than  the  aborigines.  They  are  to  them — as 
Jacques  Gartier  was  to  the  Indians  of  Canada — as 
gods.  They  are  not  sure  that  they  are  not  descended 
from  gods.  They  are  the  Children  of  the  Sun,  or 
what  not.  The  children  of  light,  who  ray  out  such 
light  as  they  have,  upon  the  darkness  of  their  subjects. 
They  are  at  first,  probably,  civilisers,  not  conquerors. 
Fov,  if  tradition  is  worth  anything — and  we  have 
nothing  else  to  go  upon — they  are  at  first  few  in 
number.  They  come  as  settlers,  or  even  as  single 
sages.  It  is,  in  all  tradition,  not  the  many  who 
influence  the  few,  but  the  few  who  influence  the  many. 

So   aristocracies,   in  the   true   sense,  are  formed. 


ANCIENT   CIVILISATION.  299 

Bat  the  higlier  calling  is  soon  forgotten.  The  purer 
light  is  soon  darkened  in  pride  and  selfishness,  luxury 
and  lust ;  as  in  Genesis_,  the  sons  of  God  see  the 
daughters  of  men,  that  they  are  fair;  and  they  take 
them  wives  of  all  that  they  choose.  And  so  a  mixed 
race  springs  up  and  increases,  without  detriment  at 
first  to  the  commonwealth.  For,  by  a  well-known 
law  of  heredity,  the  cross  between  two  races,  probably 
far  apart,  produces  at  first  a  progeny  possessing  the 
forces,  and,  alas  !  probably  the  vices  of  both.  And 
when  the  sons  of  God  go  in  to  the  daughters  of  men, 
there  are  giants  in  the  earth  in  those  days,  men  of 
renown.  The  Roman  Empire,  remember,  was  never 
stronger  than  when  the  old  Patrician  blood  had 
mingled  itself  with  that  of  every  nation  round  the 
Mediterranean. 

But  it  does  not  last.  Selfishness,  luxury,  ferocity, 
spread  from  above,  as  well  as  from  below.  The  just 
aristocracy  of  virtue  and  wisdom  becomes  an  unjust 
one  of  mere  power  and  privilege ;  that  again,  one  of 
mere  wealth,  corrupting  and  corrupt ;  and  is  destroyed, 
not  by  the  people  from  below,  but  by  the  monarch 
from  above. '    The  hereditary  bondsmen  may  know 

Who  would  be  free, 
Himself  must  strike  the  blow. 

But  they  dare  not,  know  not  how.  The  king  must  do 
it  for  them.  He  must  become  the  State.  ''  Better 
one  tyrant,^^  as  Voltaire  said,  ^^  than  many.''^  Better 
stand  in  fear  of  one  lion  far  away,  than  of  many 
wolves,  each  in  the  nearest  wood.  And  so  arise  those 
truly  monstrous  Eastern  despotisms,  of  which  modern 
Persia  is,  thank  God,  the  only  remaining  specimen  ; 
for  Turkey  and  Egypt  are  too  amenable  of  late  years 


300  ANCIENT   CIVILISATION. 

to  the  influence  of  tlie  free  nations  to  be  counted  as 
despotisms  pure  and  simple — despotisms  in  whicli 
men^  instead  o£  worshipping  a  God-man^  worship  the 
hideous  counterfeit,  a  Man-god — a  poor  human  being 
endowed  by  public  opinion  with  the  powers  of  deity, 
while  he  is  the  slave  of  all  the  weaknesses  of  humanity. 
But  such^  as  an  historic  fact,  has  been  the  last  stage 
of  every  civilisation — even  that  of  Rome,  which  ripened 
itself  upon  this  earth  the  last  in  ancient  times,  and,  I 
had  almost  said,  until  this  very  day,  except  among 
the  men  who  speak  Teutonic  tongues,  and  who  have 
preserved  through  all  temptations,  and  reasserted 
through  all  dangers,  the  free  ideas  which  have  been 
our  sacred  heritage  ever  since  Tacitus  beheld  us,  with 
respect  and  awe,  among  our  German  forests,  and  saw 
in  us  the  future  masters  of  the  Roman  Empire. 

Yes,  it  is  very  sad,  the  past  history  of  mankind. 
But  shall  we  despise  those  who  went  before  us,  and  on 
whose  accumulated  labours  we  now  stand  ? 

Shall  we  not  reverence  our  spiritual  ancestors  ? 
Shall  we  not  show  our  reverence  by  copying  them,  at 
least  whenever,  as  in  those  old  Persians,  we  see  in 
them  manliness  and  truthfulness,  hatred" of  idolatries, 
and  devotion  to  the  God  of  light  and  life  and  good  ? 
And  shall  we  not  feel  pity,  instead  of  contempt,  for 
their  ruder  forms  of  government,  their  ignorances, 
excesses,  failures — so  excusable  in  men  who,  with 
little  or  no  previous  teaching,  were  trying  to  solve  for 
themselves  for  the  first  time  the  deepest  social  and 
political  problems  of  humanity. 

Yes,  those  old  despotisms  we  trust  are  dead,  and 
never  to  revive.  But  their  corpses  are  the  corpses, 
not  of  our  enemies,  but  of  our  friends  and  prede- 
cessors, slain  in  the  world-old  fight  of  Ormuzd  against 


ANCIENT   CIVILISATION.  301 

Aliriman — light  against  darkness,  order  against  dis- 
order. Confusedly  they  fought,  and  sometimes  ill : 
but  their  corpses  piled  the  breach  and  filled  the  trench 
for  us,  and  over  their  corpses  we  step  on  to  what 
should  be  to  us  an  easy  victory — what  may  be  to  us, 
yet,  a  shameful  ruin. 

For  if  we  be,  as  we  are  wont  to  boast,  the  salt  of 
the  earth  and  the  light  of  the  world,  what  if  the  salt 
should  lose  its  savour  ?  What  if  the  light  which  is  in 
us  should  become  darkness  ?  For  myself,  when  I 
look  upon  the  responsibilities  of  the  free  nations  of 
modern  times,  so  far  from  boasting  of  that  liberty  in 
which  I  delight — and  to  keep  which  I  freely,  too, 
could  die — I  rather  say,  in  fear  and  trembling,  God 
help  us  on  whom  He  has  laid  so  heavy  a  burden  as  to 
make  us  free ;  responsible,  each  individual  of  us,  not 
only  to  ourselves,  but  to  Him  and  all  mankind.  For 
if  we  fall  we  shall  fall  I  know  not  whither,  and  I  dare 
not  think. 

How  those  old  despotisms,  the  mighty  empires 
of  old  time,  fell,  we  know,  and  we  can  easily  explain. 
Corrupt,  luxurious,  effeminate,  eaten  out  by  universal 
selfishness  and  mutual  f  ear^  they  had  at  last  no  organic 
coherence.  The  moral  anarchy  within  showed  through, 
at  last  burst  through,  the  painted  skin  of  prescriptive 
order  which  held  them  together.  Some  braver  and 
abler,  and  usually  more  virtuous  people,  often  some 
little,  hardy,  homely  mountain  tribe,  saw  that  the 
fruit  was  ripe  for  gathering ;  and,  caring  naught  for 
superior  numbers — and  saying  with  German  Alaric 
when  the  Romans  boasted  of  their  numbers,  ^^  The 
thicker  the  hay  the  easier  it  is  mowed  ^^ — struck  one 
brave  blow  at  the  huge  inflated  wind-bag — as  Cyrus 
and  his  handful  of  Persians  struck  at  the  Medes ;  as 


302  ANCIENT  CIVILISATION. 

Alexander  and  his  handful  of  Greeks  struck  afterwards 
at  the  Persians — and  behold^  it  collapsed  upon  tlie 
spot.  And  then  the  victors  took  the  place  of  the 
conquered ;  and  became  in  their  turn  an  aristocracy,, 
and  then  a  despotism ;  and  in  their  turn  rotted  down 
and  perished.  And  so  the  vicious  circle  repeated 
itself^  age  after  age,  from  Egypt  and  Assyria  to 
Mexico  and  Peru. 

And  therefore,  we,  free  peoples  as  we  are,  have 
need  to  watch,  and  sternly  watch,  ourselves.  Equality 
of  some  kind  or  other  is,  as  I  said,  our  natural  and 
seemingly  inevitable  goal.  But  which  equality  ?  For 
there  are  two — a  true  one  and  a  false  ;  a  noble  and  a 
base ;  a  healthful  and  a  ruinous.  There  is  the  truly 
divine  equality,  and  there  is  the  brute  equality  of 
sheep  and  oxen,  and  of  flies  and  worms.  There  is  the 
equality  which  is  founded  on  mutual  envy.  The 
equality  which  respects  others,  and  the  equality  which 
asserts  itself.  The  equality  which  longs  to  raise  all 
alike,  and  the  equality  which  desires  to  pull  down  all 
alike.  The  equality  which  says  :  Thou  art  as  good  as 
I,  and  it  may  be  better  too,  in  the  sight  of  God.  And. 
the  equality  which  says :  I  am  as  good  as  thou,  and. 
will  therefore  see  if  I  cannot  master  thee. 

Side  by  side,  in  the  heart  of  every  free  man,  and 
every  free  people,  are  the  two  instincts  struggling  for 
the  mastery,  called  by  the  same  name,  but  bearing 
the  same  relation  to  each  other  as  Marsyas  to  Apollo, 
the  Satyr  to  the  God.  Marsyas  and  Apollo,  the  base 
and  the  noble,  are,  as  in  the  old  Greek  legend,  con- 
tending for  the  prize.  And  the  prize  is  no  less  a 
one  than  all  free  people  of  this  planet. 

In  proportion  as  that  nobler  idea  conquers,  and 
men   unite   in   the   equality   of    mutual    respect   and 


ANCIENT   CIVILISATION.  303* 

mutual  service^  they  move  one  step  farther  towards 
realising  on  earth  that  Kingdom  of  God  of  which  it 
is  written :  "  The  despots  of  the  nations  exercise- 
dominion  over  them^  and  they  that  exercise  authority 
over  them  are  called  benefactors.  But  he  that  will  be^ 
great  among  you  let  him  be  the  servant  of  all/^ 

And  in  proportion  as  that  base  idea  conquers^  and 
selfishness^  not  self-sacrifice,  is  the  ruling  spirit  of  a 
State,  men  move  on,  one  step  forward,  towards  realising^ 
that  kingdom  of  the  devil  upon  earth,  "  Every  man 
for  himself  and  the  devil  take  the  hindmost/^  O^^lj^ 
alas  !  in  that  evil  equality  of  envy  and  hate,  there  is 
no  hindmost,  and  the  devil  takes  them  all  alike. 

And  so  is  a  period  of  discontent,  revolution,  inter- 
necine anarchy,  followed  by  a  tyranny  endured,  as  in 
old  Rome,  by  men  once  free,  because  tyranny  will  at 
least  do  for  them  what  they  were  too  lazy  and  greedy 
and  envious  to  do  for  themselves. 

And  all  because  they  have  forgot 

What  'tis  to  be  a  man — to  curb  and  spurn 

The  tyrant  in  us  :  the  ignobler  self 

Which  boasts,  not  loathes,  its  likeness  to  the  brute ;, 

And  owns  no  good  save  ease,  no  ill  save  pain, 

INo  purpose,  save  its  share  in  that  wild  war 

In  which,  through  countless  ages,  living  things 

Compete  in  internecine  greed.     Ah,  loving  Grod, 

Are  we  as  creeping  things,  which  have  no  lord  ? 

That  we  are  brutes,  great  God,  we  know  too  well ;, 

Apes  daintier-featured  ;  silly  birds,  who  flaunt 

Their  plumes,  unheeding  of  the  fowler's  step ; 

Spiders,  who  catch  with  paper,  not  with  webs  ; 

Tigers,  who  slay  with  cannon  and  sharp  steel. 

Instead  of  teeth  and  claws : — all  these  we  are. 

Are  we  no  more  than  these,  save  in  degree  ? 

Mere  fools  of  nature,  puppets  of  strong  lusts, 

Taking  the  sword,  to  perish  by  the  sword 


3(^  ANCIENT   CIVILISATION. 

Upon  the  universal  battle-field, 

Even  as  the  things  upon  the  moor  outside  ? 

The  heath  eats  up  green  grass  and  delicate  herbs ; 
The  pines  eat  up  the  heath  ;  the  grub  the  pine  ; 
The  finch  the  grub ;  the  hawk  the  silly  finch ; 
And  man,  the  mightiest  of  all  beasts  of  prey. 
Eats  what  he  lists.     The  strong  eat  up  the  weak  ; 
The  many  eat  the  few  ;  great  nations,  small ; 
And  he  who  cometh  in  the  name  of  all 
Shall,  greediest,  triumph  by  the  greed  of  all, 
And,  armed  by  his  own  victims,  eat  up  all. 
While  ever  out  of  the  eternal  heavens 
Looks  patient  dewn  the  great  magnanimous  God, 
Who,  Master  of  all  worlds,  did  sacrifice 
All  to  Himself  ?     Nay :  but  Himself  to  all  ; 
Who  taught  mankind,  on  that  first  Christmas  Day, 
What  'tis  to  be  a  man — to  give,  not  take  ; 
To  serve,  not  rule  ;  to  nourish,  not  devour ; 
To  lift,  not  crush  ;  if  need,  to  die,  not  live. 

"  He  that  cometh  in  the  name  of  all^^ — the  popalar 
military  despot — the  ^^  saviour  of  his  country  '' — he  is 
our  internecine  enemy  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic^ 
whenever  he  rises — the  inaugurator  of  that  Imperialism, 
that  Cassarism  into  which  Rome  sank^  when  not  her 
liberties  merely^  but  her  virtues,  were  decaying  out  of 
her — the  sink  into  which  all  wicked  States,  whether 
republics  or  monarchies,  are  sure  to  fall,  simply 
because  men  must  eat  and  drink  for  to-morrow  they 
die.  The  Military  and  Bureaucratic  Despotism  which 
keeps  the  many  quiet,  as  in  old  Kome,  by  panem  et 
eircenses — bread  and  games — or,  if  need  be.  Pilgrim- 
ages ;  that  the  few  may  make  money,  eat,  drink^  and 
be  merry,  as  long  as  it  can  last.  That,  let  it  ape  as  it 
may — as  did  the  Caesars  of  old  Rome  at  first — as 
another  Emperor  did  even  in  our  own  days — the  forms 
of  dead  freedom,  really  upholds  an  artificial  luxury  by 


ANCIENT  CIVILISATION.  305 

brute  force;  and  consecrates  the  basest  of  all  aris- 
tocracies^ the  aristocracy  of  the  money-bag^  by  the 
divine  sanction  of  the  bayonet. 

That  at  all  risks^  even  at  the  price  of  precious 
blood,  the  free  peoples  of  the  earth  must  ward  off  from 
them ;  for,  makeshift  and  stop-gap  as  it  is,  it  does  not 
even  succeed  in  what  it  tries  to  do.  It  does  not  last. 
Have  we  not  seen  that  it  does  not,  cannot  last  ?  .  How 
can  it  last  ?  This  falsehood,  like  all  falsehoods,  must 
collapse  at  one  touch  of  Ithuriers  spear  of  truth  and 
fact.     And — 

^^  Then  saw  I  the  end  of  these  men.  Namely,  how 
Thou  dost  set  them  in  slippery  places,  and  casteth 
them  down.  Suddenly  do  they  perish,  and  come  to  a 
fearful  end.  Yea,  like  as  a  dream  when  one  awaketh, 
so  shalt  Thou  make  their  image  to  vanish  out  of  the 
city/' 

Have  we  not  seen  that  too,  though,  thank  God, 
neither  in  England  nor  in  the  United  States  ? 

And  then  ?  What  then  ?  None  knows,  and  none 
can  know. 

The  future  of  France  and  Spain,  the  future  of  the 
Tropical  Republics  of  Spanish  America,  is  utterly 
blank  and  dark ;  not  to  be  prophesied,  I  hold,  by 
mortal  man,  simply  because  we  have  no  like  cases  in 
the  history  of  the  past  whereby  to  judge  the  tendencies 
of  the  present.  Will  they  revive  ?  Under  the  genial 
influences  of  free  institutions  will  the  good  seed  which 
is  in  them  take  root  downwards,  and  bear  fruit 
upwards  ?  and  make  them  all  what  that  fair  France 
has  been,  in  spite  of  all  her  faults,  so  often  in  past 
years — a  joy  and  an  inspiration  to  all  the  nations 
round?  Shall  it  be  thus?  God  grant  it  may;  but 
He,    and   He   alone,    can   tell.     We    only   stand   by, 

VOL.  I. — H.  E.  X 


306  ANCIENT  CIVILISATION. 

watching^  if  we  be  wise^  with  pity  and  with  fear^  the 
working  out  of  a  tremendous  new  social  problem, 
which  must  affect  the  future  of  the  whole  civilised 
world. 

For  if  the  agonising  old  nations  fail  to  regenerate 
themselves,  what  can  befall  ?  What,  when  even 
Imperialism  has  been  tried  and  failed,  as  fail  it  must  ? 
What  but  that  lower  depth  within  the  lowest  deep  ? 

That  last  dread  mood 
Of  sated  lust,  and  dull  decrepitude. 
'No  law,  no  art,  no  faith,  no  hope,  no  God. 
When  round  the  freezing  founts  of  life  in  peevish  ring, 
Crouched  on  the  bare-worn  sod, 
Babbling  about  the  unreturning  spring. 
And  whining  for  dead  creeds,  which  cannot  save. 
The  toothless  nations  shiver  to  their  grave. 

And  we,  who  think  we  stand,  let  us  take  heed  lest 
we  fall.  Let  us  accept,  in  modesty  and  in  awe,  the 
responsibility  of  our  freedom,  and  remember  that  that 
freedom  can  be  preserved  only  in  one  old-fashioned 
way.  Let  us  remember  that  the  one  condition  of  a 
true  democracy  is  the  same  as  the  one  condition  of  a 
true  aristocracy,  namely,  virtue.  Let  us  teach  our 
children,  as  grand  old  Lilly  taught  our  forefathers 
300  years  ago — ^^  It  is  virtue,  gentlemen,  yea,  virtue 
that  maketh  gentlemen;  that  maketh  the  poor  rich, 
the  subject  a  king,  the  lowborn  noble,  the  deformed 
beautiful.  These  things  neither  the  whirling  wheel  of 
fortune  can  overturn,  nor  the  deceitful  cavillings  of 
worldlings  separate,  neither  sickness  abate,  nor  age 
abolish.^  ^ 

Yes.  Let  us  teach  our  children  thus  on  both  sides 
of  the  Atlantic.  For  if  they — which  God  forbid — 
should   grow  corrupt   and  weak   by  their  own  sins. 


ANCIENT   CIVILISATION. 


there  is  no  hardier  race  now  left  on  ^rth  to^c^jjjier^ 
our  descendants  and  bring  them  bac]^t^>  reason^  afet  A 
those  old  Jews  were  brought  by  bitter  shamer'afal^woe. 
And  all  that  is  before  them  and  the  whole  civili^eS  / -., 
worlds  would  be  long  centuries  of  anarchy  such  as  the 
world  has  not  seen  for  ages — a  true  Eagnarok^  a 
twilight  of  the  very  gods^  an  age  such  as  the  wise 
woman  foretold  in  the  old  Voluspa. 

"When  brethren  shall  be 
Each  other's  bane, 
And  sisters'  sons  rend 
The  ties  of  kin. 
Hard  will  be  that  age, 
An  age  of  bad  women, 
An  axe-age,  a  sword-age, 
Shields  oft  cleft  in  twain, 
A  storm-age,  a  wolf-age. 
Ere  earth  meet  its  doom. 

So  sang^  2000  years  ago,  perhaps,  the  great  un- 
named prophetess,  of  our  own  race,  of  what  might  be, 
if  we  should  fail  mankind  and  our  own  calling  and 
election. 

God  grant  that  day  may  never  come.  But  God 
grant,  also,  that  if  that  day  does  come,  then  may 
come  true  also  what  that  wise  Vala  sang,  of  the  day 
when  gods,  and  men,  and  earth  should  be  burnt  up 
with  fire. 

When  slaked  Surtur's  flame  is, 

Still  the  man  and  the  maiden, 

Hight  Yalour  and  Life, 

Shall  keep  themselves  hid 

In  the  wood  of  remembrance. 

The  dew  of  the  dawning 

For  food  it  shall  serve  them  : 

JFrom  them  spring  new  peoples. 

X  2 


308  ANCIENT   CIVILISATION. 

New  peoples.  For  after  all  is  said,  the  ideal  form 
of  human  society  is  democracy. 

A  nation — and,  were  it  even  possible,  a  whole 
world — of  free  men,  lifting  free  foreheads  to  God  and 
Nature;  calling  no  man  master — for  one  is  their 
master,  even  God ;  knowing  and  obeying  their  duties 
towards  the  Maker  of  the  Universe,  and  therefore  to 
each  other,  and  that  not  from  fear,  nor  calculation  of 
profit  or  loss,  but  because  they  loved  and  liked  it,  and 
had  seen  the  beauty  of  righteousness  and  trust  and 
peace ;  because  the  law  of  God  was  in  their  hearts,  and 
needing  at  last,  it  may  be,  neither  king  nor  priest,  for 
each  man  and  each  woman,  in  their  place,  were  kings 
and  priests  to  God.  Such  a  nation — such  a  society — 
what  nobler  conception  of  mortal  existence  can  we 
form  ?  Would  not  that  be,  indeed,  the  kingdom  of 
God  come  on  earth  ? 

And  tell  me  not  that  that  is  impossible — too  fair  a 
dream  to  be  ever  realised.  All  that  makes  it  impossible 
is  the  selfishness,  passions,  weaknesses,  of  those  who 
would  be  blest  were  they  masters  of  themselves,  and 
therefore  of  circumstances ;  who  are  miserable  because, 
not  being  masters  of  themselves,  they  try  to  master 
circumstance,  to  pull  down  iron  walls  with  weak  and 
clumsy  hands,  and  forget  that  he  who  would  be  free 
from  tyrants  must  first  be  free  from  his  worst  tyrant, 
self. 

But  tell  me  not  that  the  dream  is  impossible.  It 
is  so  beautiful  that  it  must  be  true.  If  not  now,  nor 
centuries  hence,  yet  still  hereafter.  God  would  never, 
as  I  hold,  have  inspired  man  with  that  rich  imagi- 
nation had  He  not  meant  to  translate,  some  day,  that 
imagination  into  fact. 

The  very  greatness  of  the  idea,  beyond  what  a 


ANCIENT   CIVILISATION.  309 

single  mind  or  generation  can  grasp,  will  ensure  failure 
on  failure — ^follies,  fanaticisms,  disappointments,  even 
orimes,  bloodshed,  hasty  furies,  as  of  children  baulked 
of  their  holiday. 

But  it  will  be  at  last  fulfilled,  filled  full,  and  per- 
fected ;  not  perhaps  here,  or  among  our  peoples,  or  any 
people  which  now  exist  on  earth  :  but  in  some  future 
civilisation — it  may  be  in  far  lands  beyond  the  sea — 
when  all  that  you  and  we  have  made  and  done  shall 
be  as  the  forest-grown  mounds  of  the  old  nameless 
civilisers  of  the  Mississippi  valley.* 

*  This  lecfcure  and  the  two  preceding  ones,  being  published  after 
the  author's  death,  have  not  had  the  benefit  of  his  corrections. 


.   RONDELET, 
THE    HUGUENOT    NATURALIST. 


RONDELET,'^ 
THE  HUGUENOT  MTURAL1ST.+ 


*^  Apollo^  god  of  medicine,  exiled  from  tlie  rest  of  the 
earth,  was  straying  once  across  the  Narbonnaise  in 
Gaul,  seeking  to  fix  his  abode  there.  Driven  from 
Asia,  from  Africa,  and  from  the  rest  of  Europe,  he 
wandered  through  all  the  towns  of  the  province  in 
search  of  a  place  propitious  for  him  and  for  his  disciples. 
At  last  he  perceived  a  new  city,  constructed  from  the 
ruins  of  Maguelonne,  of  Lattes,  and  of  Substantion. 
He  contemplated  long  its  site,  its  aspect,  its  neigh- 
bourhood, and  resolved  to  establish  on  this  hill  of 
Montpellier  a  temple  for  himself  and  his  priests.  All 
smiled  on  his  desires.  By  the  genius  of  the  soil,  by 
the  character  of  the  inhabitants,  no  town  is  more  fit  for 
the  culture  of  letters,  and  above  all  of  medicine.  What 
site  is  more   delicious  and  more  lovely  ?     A  heaven 

*  A  Life  of  Rondelet,  by  his  pupil  Laurent  Joubert,  is  to  be  found 
appended  to  bis  works ;  and  with  an  account  of  bis  illness  and 
deatbj  by  bis  cousin,  Claude  Formy,  wbicb  is  well  worth  the  perusal 
of  any  man,  wise  or  foolish.  Many  interesting  details  beside,  I  owe  to 
the  courtesy  of  Professor  Plan  ebon,  of  Montpellier,  author  of  a  dis- 
course on  ' '  Rondelet  et  ses  Disciples,"  which  appeared,  with  a  learned 
and  curious  Appendix,  in  the  "  Montpellier  Medical "  for  1866. 

+  This  lecture  was  given  at  Cambridge  in  1869. 


314         EONDELET,  THE   HUGUENOT   NATURALIST. 

pure  and  smiling ;  a  city  built  witli  magnificence ;  men 
born  for  all  the  labours  of  the  intellect.  All  around 
vast  horizons  and  enchanting  sites — meadows^  vines^ 
olives,  green  champaigns ;  mountains  and  hills,  rivers? 
brooks,  lagoons,  and  the  sea.  Everywhere  a  luxuriant 
vegetation — everywhere  the  richest  production  of  the 
land  and  the  water.  Hail  to  thee,  sweet  and  dear  city  ! 
Hail,  happy  abode  of  Apollo,  who  spreadest  afar  the 
light  of  the  glory  of  thy  name  V 

'^  This  fine  tirade,^^says  Dr.  Maurice  Raynaud — from 
whose  charming  book  on  the  ''  Doctors  of  the  Time  of 
Moliere ''  I  quote — ^^  is  not,  as  one  might  think,  the 
translation  of  a  piece  of  poetry.  It  is  simply  part  of  a 
public  oration  by  Fran9ois  Panchon,  one  of  the  most 
illustrious  chancellors  of  the  faculty  of  medicine  of 
Montpellier  in  the  seventeenth  century.''^  ^^  From  time 
immemorial,^^  he  says,  "  ^  the  faculty  ^  of  Montpellier 
had  made  itself  remarkable  by  a  singular  mixture  of 
the  sacred  and  the  profane.  The  theses  which  were 
sustained  there  began  by  an  invocation  to  God,  the 
Blessed  Virgin,  and  St.  Luke,  and  ended  by  these 
words  :  ^  This  thesis  will  be  sustained  in  the  sacred 
Temple  of  Apollo.' '' 

But  however  extravagant  Chancellor  Fanchon's 
praises  of  his  native  city  may  seem,  they  are  really 
not  exaggerated.  The  Narbonnaise,  or  Languedoc,  is 
perhaps  the  most  charming  district  of  charming  France. 
In  the  far  north-east  gleam  the  white  Alps ;  in  the  far 
south-west  the  white  Pyrenees ;  and  from  the  purple 
glens  and  yellow  downs  of  the  Cevennes  on  the  north- 
west, the  Herault  slopes  gently  down  towards  the 
^^  Etangs,''  or  great  salt-water  lagoons,  and  the  vast 
alluvial  flats  of  the  Camargue,  the  field  of  Caius  Marius^ 
where  still  run  herds  of  half -wild  horses,  descended 


EONDELET,  THE   HUGUENOT   NATURALIST.  31& 

from  some  ancient  Eoman  stock;  while  beyond  all 
glitters  the  blue  Mediterranean.  The  great  almond 
orchards,  each  one  sheet  of  rose-colour  in  spring ;  the, 
mulberry  orchards,  the  oliveyards,  the  vineyards,  cover 
every  foot  of  available  upland  soil :  save  where  the 
rugged  and  arid  downs  are  sweet  with  a  thousand  odori- 
ferous plants,  from  which  the  bees  extract  the  famous 
white  honey  of  Narbonne.  The  native  flowers  and 
shrubs,  of  a  beauty  and  richness  rather  Eastern  than 
European,  have  made  the  '^  Flora  Montpeliensis/^  and 
with  it  the  names  of  Eondelet  and  his  disciples,  famous 
among  botanists  ;  and  the  strange  fish  and  shells  upon 
its  shores  afforded  Rondelet  materials  for  his  immortal 
work  upon  the  ^'  Animals  of  the  Sea.''^  The  innumerable 
wild  fowl  of  the  Bouches  du  Rhone;  the  innumerable 
songsters  and  other  birds  of  passage,  many  of  them 
unknown  in  these  islands,  and  even  in  the  north  of 
France  itself,  which  haunt  every  copse  of  willow  and 
aspen  along  the  brook-sides;  the  gaudy  and  curious 
insects  which  thrive  beneath  that  clear,  fierce,  and  yet 
bracing  sunlight ;  all  these  have  made  the  district  of 
Montpellier  a  home  prepared  by  Nature  for  those  who 
study  and  revere  her. 

Neitherwas  Chancellor  Fanchonmisled  by  patriotism^ 
when  he  said  the  pleasant  people  who  inhabit  that  dis« 
trict  are  fit  for  all  the  labours  of  the  intellect.  They 
are  a  very  mixed  race,  and,  like  most  mixed  races^ 
quick-witted,  and  handsome  also.  There  is  probably 
much  Roman  blood  among  them,  especially  in  the 
towns ;  for  Languedoc,  or  Gallia  Narbonnensis,  as  it 
was  called  of  old,  was  said  to  be  more  Roman  than 
Rome  itself.  The  Roman  remains  are  more  perfect 
and  more  interesting — so  the  late  Dr.  Whewell  used  to 
say — than  any  to  be  seen  now  in  Italy ;  and  the  old 


316         EONDELET,  THE   HUGUENOT  NATURALIST. 

capital^  Narbonne  itself,  was  a  complete  museum  of 
Roman  antiquities  ere  Francis  I.  destroyed  it,  in  order 
to  fortify  the  city  upon  a  modern  system  against  the 
invading  armies  of  Charles  V.  There  must  be  much 
Visigothic  blood  likewise  in  Languedoc  :  for  the  Visi- 
gothic  Kings  held  their  courts  there  from  the  fifth 
century,  until  the  time  that  they  were  crushed  by  the 
invading  Moors.  Spanish  blood,  likewise,  there  may 
be ;  for  much  of  Languedoc  was  held  in  the  early 
Middle  Age  by  those  descendants  of  Eudes  of  Aqui- 
taine  who  established  themselves  as  kings  of  Majorca 
and  Arragon  ;  and  Languedoc  did  not  become  entirely 
French  till  1349,  when  Philip  le  Bel  bought  Mont- 
pellier  of  those  potentates.  The  Moors,  too,  may  have 
left  some  traces  of  their  race  behind.  They  held  the 
country  from  about  a.d.  713  to  758,  when  they  were 
finally  expelled  by  Charles  Martel  and  Eudes.  One 
sees  to  this  day  their  towers  of  meagre  stonework, 
perched  on  the  grand  Roman  masonry  of  those  old 
amphitheatres,  which  they  turned  into  fortresses.  One 
may  see,  too — so  tradition  holds — upon  those  very 
amphitheatres  the  stains  of  the  fires  with  which 
Charles  Martel  smoked  them  out ;  and  one  may  see, 
too,  or  fancy  that  one  sees,  in  the  aquiline  features, 
the  bright  black  eyes,  the  lithe  and  graceful  gestures, 
which  are  so  common  in  Languedoc,  some  touch  of  the 
old  Mahommedan  race,  which  passed  like  a  flood  over 
that  Christian  land. 

Whether  or  not  the  Moors  left  behind  any  traces  of 
their  blood,  they  left  behind,  at  least,  traces  of  their 
learning ;  for  the  university  of  Montpellier  claimed  to 
have  been  founded  by  Moors  at  a  date  of  altogether 
abysmal  antiquity.  They  looked  upon  the  Arabian 
physicians    of    the   Middle   Age,    on   Avicenna    and 


EONDELET,  THE   HUGUENOT    NATURALIST.  317 

Averrlioes^  as  modern  innovators,,  and  derived  their 
parentage  from  certain  mythic  doctors  of  Cordova, 
who,  when  the  Moors  were  expelled  from  Spain  in  the 
eighth  century,  fled  to  Montpellier,  bringing  with  them 
traditions  of  that  primaeval  science  which  had  been 
revealed  to  Adam  while  still  in  Paradise ;  and  founded 
Montpellier,  the  mother  of  all  the  universities  in 
Europe.  Nay,  some  went  farther  still,  and  told  of 
Bengessaus  and  Perragius,  the  physicians  of  Charle- 
magne, and  of  Marilephus,  chief  physician  of  King 
Chilperic,  and  even — if  a  letter  of  St.  Bernard^s  was  to 
be  believed — of  a  certain  bishop  who  went  as  early  as 
the  second  century  to  consult  the  doctors  of  Mont-* 
pellier ;  and  it  would  have  been  in  vain  to  reply  to 
them  that  in  those  days,  and  long  after  them,  Mont- 
pellier was  not  yet  built.  The  facts  are  said  to  be : 
that  as  early  as  the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury Montpellier  had  its  schools  of  law,  medicine,  and 
arts,  which  were  erected  into  a  university  by  Pope 
Nicholas  IV.  in  1289. 

The  university  of  Montpellier,  like — I  believe — 
most  foreign  ones,  resembled  more  a  Scotch  than  an 
English  university.  The  students  lived,  for  the  most 
part,  not  in  colleges,  but  in  private  lodgings,  and  con- 
stituted a  republic  of  their  own,  ruled  by  an  abbe  of 
the  scholars,  one  of  themselves,  chosen  by  universal 
suffrage.  A  terror  they  were  often  to  the  respectable 
burghers,  for  they  had  all  the  right  to  carry  arms ; 
and  a  plague  likewise,  for,  if  they  ran  in  debt,  their 
creditors  were  forbidden  to  seize  their  books,  which, 
with  their  swords,  were  generally  all  the  property  they 
possessed.  If,  moreover,  anyone  set  up  a  noisy  or 
unpleasant  trade  near  their  lodgings,  the  scholars 
could  compel   the  town  authorities  to  turn  him  out. 


318         EONDELET,  THE   HUGUENOT  NATURALIST. 

They  were  most  of  tliem^  probably,  mere  boys  of  from 
twelve  to  twenty,  living  poorly,,  working  hard,  and — 
those  at  least  of  them  who  were  in  the  colleges — 
cruelly  beaten  daily,  after  the  fashion  of  those  times  ; 
but  they  seem  to  have  comforted  themselves  under 
their  troubles  by  a  good  deal  of  wild  life  out  of  school, 
by  rambling  into  the  country  on  the  festivals  of  the 
saints,  and  now  and  then  by  acting  plays ;  notably, 
that  famous  one  which  Rabelais  wrote  for  them  in 
1531:  ^^The  moral  comedy  of  the  man  who  had  a 
dumb  wife ;  '^  which  ^^  joyous  patelinage  '\  remains 
unto  this  day  in  the  shape  of  a  well-known  comic 
song.  That  comedy  young  Rondelet  must  have  seen 
acted.  The  son  of  a  druggist,  spicer,  and  grocer — the 
three  trades  were  then  combined — in  Montpellier,  and 
born  in  1507,  he  had  been  destined  for  the  cloister, 
being  a  sickly  lad.  His  uncle,  one  of  the  canons  of 
Maguelonne,  near  by,  had  even  given  him  the  revenues 
of  a  small  chapel — a  job  of  nepotism  which  was  common 
enough  in  those  days.  But  his  heart  was  in  science 
and  medicine.  He  set  off,  still  a  mere  boy,  to  Paris  to 
study  there ;  and  returned  to  Montpellier,  at  the  age 
of  eighteen,  to  study  again. 

The  next  year,  1530,  while  still  a  scholar  himself, 
he  was  appointed  procurator  of  the  scholars — a  post 
which  brought  him  in  a  small  fee  on  each  matriculation 
— and  that  year  he  took  a  fee,  among  others,  from 
one  of  the  most  remarkable  men  of  that  or  of  any  age 
Pran9ois  Rabelais  himself. 

And  what  shall  I  say  of  him  ? — who  stands  alone, 
like  Shakespeare,  in  his  generation;  possessed  of 
colossal  learning — of  all  science  which  could  be 
gathered  in  his  days — of  practical  and  statesmanlike 
wisdom — of    knowledge   of    languages,    ancient    and 


EONDELET,  THE   HUGUENOT  NATUEALTST.  319 

modern,  beyond  all  his  compeers — of  eloquence,  whicli 
when  he  speaks  of  pure  and  noble  things  becomes 
heroic,  and,  as  it  were,  inspired — of  scorn  for  mean- 
ness, hypocrisy,  ignorance — of  esteem,  genuine  and 
earnest,  for  the  Holy  Scriptures,  and  for  the  more 
moderate  of  the  Reformers  who  were  spreading  the 
Scriptures  in  Europe, — and  all  this  great  light  wilfully 
hidden_,  not  under  a  bushel,  but  under  a  dunghill.  He 
is  somewhat  like  Socrates  in  face,  and  in  character 
likewise ;  in  him,  as  in  Socrates,  the  demigod  and  the 
satyr,  the  man  and  the  ape,  are  struggling  for  the 
mastery.  In  Socrates,  the  true  man  conquers,  and 
comes  forth  high  and  pure ;  in  Rabelais,  alas  !  the 
victor  is  the  ape,  while  the  man  himself  sinks  down  in 
cynicism,  sensuality,  practical  jokes,  foul  talk.  He 
returns  to  Paris,  to  live  an  idle,  luxurious  life ;  to  die 
— says  the  legend — saying,  ^^  I  go  to  seek  a  great 
perhaps,^^  and  to  leave  behind  him  little  save  a  school 
of  Pantagruelists — careless  young  gentlemen,  whose 
ideal  was  to  laugh  at  everything,  to  believe  in  nothing, 
and  to  gratify  their  five  senses  like  the  brutes  which 
perish.  There  are  those  who  read  his  books  to  make 
them  laugh ;  the  wise  man,  when  he  reads  them,  will 
be  far  more  inclined  to  weep.  Let  any  young  man 
who  may  see  these  words  remember,  that  in  him,  as  in 
Rabelais,  the  ape  and  the  man  are  struggling  for  the 
mastery.  Let  him  take  warning  by  the  fate  of  one 
who  was  to  him  as  a  giant  to  a  pigmy ;  and  think  of 
Tennyson^s  words — 

Arise,  and  fly 

The  reeling  faun,  the  sensual  feast ; 

Strive  upwards,  working  out  the  beast, 

And  let  the  ape  and  tiger  die. 

But  to  return.     Down  among  them  there  at  Mont- 


320         EONDELET,  THE   HUGUENOT  NATUKALIST. 

pelHer,  like  a  brilliant  meteor,  flashed  this  wonderful 
Rabelais,  in  tlie  year  1530.  He  had  fled,  some  say,  for 
his  life.  Like  Erasmus,  he  had  no  mind  to  be  a 
martyr,  and  he  had  been  terrified  at  the  execution  of 
poor  Louis  de  Berquin,  his  friend,  and  the  friend  of 
Erasmus  likewise.  This  Louis  de  Berquin,  a  man  well 
known  in  those  days,  was  a  gallant  young  gentleman 
and  scholar,  holding  a  place  in  the  court  of  Francis  L, 
who  had  translated  into  French  the  works  of  Erasmus, 
Luther,  and  Melancthon,  and  had  asserted  that  it  was 
heretical  to  invoke  the  Virgin  Mary  instead  of  the 
Holy  Spirit,  or  to  call  her  our  Hope  and  our  Life, 
which  titles — Berquin  averred — belonged  alone  to 
God.  Twice  had  the  doctors  of  the  Sorbonne,  with 
that  terrible  persecutor,  Noel  Beda,  at  their  head, 
seized  poor  Berquin,  and  tried  to  burn  his  books  and 
him ;  twice  had  that  angel  in  human  form.  Marguerite 
d^Angouleme,  sister  of  Francis  L,  saved  him  from  their 
clutches;  but  when  Francis — taken  prisoner  at  the 
battle  of  Pavia — at  last  returned  from  his  captivity  in 
Spain,  the  suppression  of  heresy  and  the  burning  of 
heretics  seemed  to  him  and  to  his  mother,  Louise  of 
Savoy,  a  thank-offering  so  acceptable  to  God,  that 
Louis  Berquin — who  would  not,  in  spite  of  the  en- 
treaties of  Erasmus,  purchase  his  life  by  silence — was 
burnt  at  last  on  the  Place  de  Greve,  being  first 
strangled,  because  he  was  of  gentle  blood. 

Montpellier  received  its  famous  guest  joyfully. 
Rabelais  was  now  forty-two  years  old,  and  a  dis^ 
tinguished  savant ;  so  they  excused  him  his  three 
years^  undergraduate's  career,  and  invested  him  at 
once  with  the  red  gown  of  the  bachelors.  That  red 
gown — or,  rather,  the  ragged  phantom  of  it — is  still 
shown   at   Montpellier,   and    must  be   worn  by  each 


RONDELET,  THE   HUGUENOT   NATUBfALIS'S^    >  32_  ^ 

bachelor  wheii  lie  takes  his  degree.  /  Unfci(rt)inately,-^^ 
antiquarians  assure  us  that  the  precious  garmefe^^has 
been  renewed  again  and  again — the  stu^^ijt^  having*^'  , 
clipped   bits    of   it    away   for   relics'^    and   clipped   as      ' 
earnestly  from  the  new  gowns  as  their  predecessors 
had  done  from  the  authentic  original.  ^ 

Doubtless^  the  coming  of  such  a  man  among  them 
to  lecture  on  the  Aphorisms  of  Hippocrates,  and  the 
Ars  Parva  of  Galen,  not  from  the  Latin  translations 
then  in  use,  but  from  original  Greek  texts,  with  com- 
ments and  corrections  of  his  own,  must  have  had  a 
great  influence  on  the  minds  of  the  Montpellier 
students ;  and  still  more  influence  —  and  that  not 
altogether  a  good  one — must  Rabelais^ s  lighter  talk 
have  had,  as  he  lounged — so  the  story  goes — in  his 
dressing-gown  upon  the  public  place,  picking  up 
quaint  stories  from  the  cattle-drivers  off  the  Cevennes, 
and  the  villagers  who  came  in  to  sell  their  olives  and 
their  grapes,  their  vinegar  and  their  vine-twig  faggots, 
as  they  do  unto  this  day.  To  him  may  be  owing  much 
of  the  sound  respect  for  natural  science,  and  much, 
too,  of  the  contempt  for  the  superstition  around  them, 
which  is  notable  in  that  group  of  great  naturalists  who 
were  boys  in  Montpellier  at  that  day.  Rabelais  seems 
to  have  liked  Rondelet,  and  no  wonder :  he  was  a 
cheery,  lovable,  honest  little  fellow,  very  fond  of 
jokes,  a  great  musician  and  player  on  the  violin,  and 
who,  when  he  grew  rich,  liked  nothing  so  well  as  to 
bring  into  his  house  any  buffoon  or  strolling-player  to 
make  fun  for  him.  Vivacious  he  was,  hot-tempered, 
forgiving,  and  with  a  power  of  learning  and  a  power 
of  work  which  were  prodigious,  even  in  those  hard- 
working days.  Rabelais  chaffs  Rondelet,  under  the 
name  of  Rondibilis ;    for,  indeed,  Rondelet  grew  up 

YOL.  I. — H.  E.  T 


322         RONDELET,  THE   HUGUENOT   NATURALIST. 

into  a  very  round,  fat,  little  man ;  but  Rabelais  puts 
excellent  sense  into  Ms  moutb,  cynical  enough,  and  too 
cynical,  but  both,  learned  and  humorous ;  and,  if  he 
laughs  at  him  for  being  shocked  at  the  offer  of  a  fee, 
and  taking  it,  nevertheless,  kindly  enough,  Rond^let  is 
not  the  first  doctor  who  has  done  that,  neither  will  he 
be  the  last. 

Rondelet,  in  his  turn,  put  on  the  red  robe  of  the 
bachelor,  and  received,  on  taking  his  degree,  his  due 
share  of  fisticuffs  from  his  dearest  friends,  according 
to  the  ancient  custom  of  the  University  of  Montpellier. 
He  then  went  off  to  practise  medicine  in  a  village  at 
the  foot  of  the  Alps,  and,  half-starved,  to  teach  little 
children.  Then  he  found  he  must  learn  Greek;  went 
off  to  Paris  a  second  time,  and  alleviated  his  poverty 
there  somewhat  by  becoming  tutor  to  a  son  of  the 
Viscomte  de  Turenne.  There  he  met  Gonthier  of 
Andernach,  who  had  taught  anatomy  at  Louvain  to 
the  great  Vesalius,  and  learned  from  him  to  dissect. 
We  next  find  him  setting  up  as  a  medical  man  amid 
the  wild  volcanic  hills  of  the  Auvergne,  struggling 
still  with  poverty,  like  Erasmus,  like  George  Buchanan, 
like  almost  every  great  scholar  in  those  days ;  for 
students  then  had  to  wander  from  place  to  place, 
generally  on  foot,  in  search  of  new  teachers,  in  search 
of  books,  in  search  of  the  necessaries  of  life ;  under- 
going such  an  amount  of  bodily  and  mental  toil  as 
makes  it  wonderful  that  all  of  them  did  not  —  as 
some  of  them  doubtless  did  —  die  under  the  hard 
training,  or,  at  best,  desert  the  penurious  Muses  for 
the  paternal  shop  or  plough. 

E/ondelet  got  his  doctorate  in  1537,  and  next  year 
fell  in  love  with  and  married  a  beautiful  young  girl 


RONDELET,  THE   HUGUENOT  NATURALIST.         323 

called  Jeanne  Sandre^  who  seems  to  have  been  as  poor 
as  he. 

But  he  had  gained^  meanwhile,  a  powerful  patron ; 
and  the  patronage  of  the  great  was  then  as  necessary 
to  men  of  letters  as  the  patronage  of  the  public  is  now. 
Guillaume  Pellicier,  Bishop  of  Maguelonne — or  rather 
then  of  Montpellier  itself,  whither  he  had  persuaded 
Paul  II.  to  transfer  the  ancient  see — was  a  model  of  the 
literary  gentleman  of  the  sixteenth  century;  a  savant^  a 
diplomat,  a  collector  of  books  and  manuscripts,  Greek, 
Hebrew,  and  Syriac,  which  formed  the  original  nucleus 
of  the  present  library  of  the  Louvre ;  a  botanist,  too, 
who  loved  to  wander  with  Rondelet  collecting  plants 
and  flowers.  He  retired  from  public  life  to  peace  and 
science  at  Montpellier,  when  to  the  evil  days  of  his 
master,  Francis  I.,  succeeded  the  still  worse  days  of 
Henry  II.,  and  Diana  of  Poitiers.  That  Jezebel  of 
France  could  conceive  no  more  natural  or  easy  way  of 
atoning  for  her  own  sins  than  that  of  hunting  down 
heretics,  and  feasting  her  wicked  eyes — so  it  is  said — 
upon  their  dying  torments.  Bishop  Pellicier  fell  under 
suspicion  of  heresy  :  very  probably  with  some  justice. 
He  fell,  too,  under  suspicion  of  leading  a  life  unworthy 
of  a  celibate  churchman,  a  fault  which — if  it  really 
existed — was,  in  those  days,  pardonable  enough  in  an 
orthodox  prelate,  but  not  so  in  one  whose  orthodoxy 
was  suspected.  And  for  awhile  Pellicier  was  in  prison. 
After  his  release  he  gave  himself  up  to  science,  with 
Kondelet  and  the  school  of  disciples  who  were  grow- 
ing up  around  him.  They  rediscovered  together  the 
Garum,  that  classic  sauce,  whose  praises  had  been  sung 
of  old  by  Horace,  Martial,  and  Ausonius ;  and  so  child- 
like, superstitious  if  you  will,  was  the  reverence  in 

T  2 


324         EONDELET,  THE   HUGUENOT   NATUEALIST. 

the  sixteentli  century  for  classic  antiquity,  that  wlien 
Pellicier  and  Hondelet  discovered  tliat  the  Garum  was 
made  from  the  fish  called  Picarel — called  Garon  by 
the  fishers  of  Antibes,  and  Giroli  at  Venice,  both  these 
last  names  corruptions  of  the  Latin  Gerres — then  did 
the  two  fashionable  poets  of  Prance,  Btienne  Dolet 
and  Clement  Marot,  think  it  not  unworthy  of  their 
muse  to  sing  the  praises  of  the  sauce  which  Horace 
had  sung  of  old.  A  proud  day,  too,  was  it  for  Pellicier 
and  Rondelet,  when  wandering  somewhere  in  the 
marshes  of  the  Camargue,  a  scent  of  garlic  caught  the 
nostrils  of  the  gentle  bishop,  and  in  the  lovely  pink 
flowers  of  the  water-germander  he  recognised  the 
Scordium  of  the  ancients.  ^^The  discovery,^^  says 
Professor  Planchon,  ^^  made  almost  as  much  noise  as 
that  of  the  famous  Garum;  for  at  that  moment  of 
naive  fervour  on  behalf  of  antiquity,  to  re- discover  a 
plant  of  Dioscorides  or  of  Pliny  was  a  good  fortune 
and  almost  an  event/ ^ 

I  know  not  whether,  after  his  death,  the  good 
bishop^s  bones  reposed  beneath  some  gorgeous  tomb, 
bedizened  with  the  incongruous  half-Pagan  statues  of 
the  Renaissance ;  but  this  at  least  is  certain,  that 
Rondelet^s  disciples  imagined  for  him  a  monument 
more  enduring  than  of  marble  or  of  brass,  more 
graceful  and  more  curiously  wrought  than  all  the 
sculptures  of  Torrigiano  or  Cellini,  Baccio  Bandinelli 
or  Michael  Angelo  himself.  For  they  named  a  lovely 
little  lilac  snapdragon,  Linaria  Domini  PelUcerii — 
^'Lord  Pellicier^s  toad-flax  ;^^  and  that  name  it  will 
keep,  we  may  believe,  as  long  as  winter  and  summer 
shall  endure. 

But  to  return.  To  this  good  Patron — who  was  the 
Ambassador  at  Venice — the  newly-married  Rondelet 


PtONDELET,  THE   HUGUENOT   NATURALIST.  325 

determined  to  apply  for  employment ;  and  to  Venice 
lie  would  have  gone,  leaving  his  bride  behind,  had  he 
not  been  stayed  by  one  of  those  angels  who  sometimes 
walk  the  earth  in  women^s  shape.  Jeanne  Sandre 
had  an  elder  sister,  Catharine,  who  had  brought  her 
up.  She  was  married  to  a  wealthy  man,  but  she  had 
no  children  of  her  own.  For  four  years  she  and  her 
good  husband  had  let  the  Eondelets  lodge  with  them, 
and  now  she  was  a  widow,  and  to  part  with  them  was 
more  than  she  could  bear.  She  carried  Rondelet  off 
from  the  students  who  were  seeing  him  safe  out  of 
the  city,  brought  him  back,  settled  on  him  the  same 
day  half  her  fortune,  and  soon  after  settled  on  him  the 
whole,  on  the  sole  condition  that  she  should  live  with 
him  and  her  sister.  For  years  afterwards  she  watched 
over  the  pretty  young  wife  and  her  two  girls  and  three 
boys — the  three  boys,  alas  1  all  died  young — and  over 
Rondelet  himself,  who,  immersed  in  books  and  experi- 
ments, was  utterly  careless  about  money ;  and  was  to 
them  all  a  mother — advising,  guiding,  managing,  and 
regarded  by  Rondelet  with  genuine  gratitude  as  his 
guardian  angel. 

Honour  and  good  fortune,  in  a  worldly  sense,  now 
poured  in  upon  the  druggists  son.  Pellicier,  his  own 
bishop,  stood  godfather  to  his  first-born  daughter. 
Montluc,  Bishop  of  Valence,  and  that  wise  and  learned 
statesman,  the  Cardinal  of  Tournon,  stood  godfathers  a 
few  years  later  to  his  twin  boys ;  and  what  was  of  still 
more  solid  worth  to  him.  Cardinal  Tournon  took  him 
to  Antwerp,  Bordeaux,  Bayonne,  and  more  than  once 
to  Rome;  and  in  these  Italian  journeys  of  his  he 
collected  many  facts  for  the  great  work  of  his  life, 
that  '^  History  of  Fishes  ^^  which  he  dedicated,  naturally 
enough,  to  the  cardinal.     This  book  with  its  plates  is. 


326         KONDELET,  THE   HUGUENOT   NATURALIST. 

for  the  time^  a  masterpiece  of  accuracy.  Those  wha 
are  best  acquainted  with  the  subject  say^  that  it  is  up 
to  the  present  day  a  key  to  the  whole  ichthyolog-y  of 
the  Mediterranean.  Two  other  men^  Belon  and 
Salviani,  were  then  at  work  on  the  same  subject,  and 
published  their  books  almost  at  the  same  time;  a 
circumstance  which  caused_,  as  was  natural^  a  three- 
cornered  duel  between  the  supporters  of  the  three 
naturalists,,  each  party  accusing  the  other  of  plagiarism. 
The  simple  fact  seems  to  be  that  the  almost  simul- 
taneous appearance  of  the  three  books  in  1554-55  is 
one  of  those  coincidences  inevitable  at  moments  when 
many  minds  are  stirred  in  the  same  direction  by  the 
same  great  thoughts — coincidences  which  have  hap- 
pened in  our  own  day  on  questions  of  geology^  biology, 
and  astronomy ;  and  which^  when  the  facts  have  been 
carefully  examined,  and  the  first  flush  of  natural 
jealousy  has  cooled  down,  have  proved  only  that 
there  were  more  wise  men  than  one  in  the  world  at 
the  same  time. 

And  this  sixteenth  century  was  an  age  in  which 
the  minds  of  men  were  suddenly  and  strangely  turned 
to  examine  the  wonders  of  nature  with  an  earnest- 
ness, with  a  reverence,  and  therefore  with  an  accuracy, 
with  which  they  had  never  been  investigated  before. 
^^  Nature/^  says  Professor  Planchon,  "  long  veiled  in 
mysticism  and  scholasticism,  was  opening  up  infinite 
vistas.  A  new  superstition,  the  exaggerated  worship 
of  the  ancients,  was  nearly  hindering  this  movement 
of  thought  towards  facts.  Nevertheless,  Learning  did 
her  work.  She  rediscovered,  reconstructed,  purified, 
commented  on  the  texts  of  ancient  authors.  Then 
came  in  observation,  which  showed  that  more  was  to 
be  seen  in  one  blade  of  grass  than  in  any  page   of 


RONDELET,  THE   HUGUENOT   NATURALIST.  327 

Pliny.  Eondelet  was  in  the  middle  of  this  crisis  a 
man  of  transition^  while  he  was  one  of  progress.  He 
reflected  the  past ;  he  opened  and  prepared  the  future. 
If  he  commented  on  Dioscorides^  if  he  remained  faith- 
ful to  the  theories  of  Galen^  he  founded  in  his  ^  History 
of  Pishes^  a  monument  which  our  century  respects. 
He  is  above  all  an  inspirer,  an  initiator;  and  if  he 
wants  one  mark  of  the  leader  of  a  school^  the  founda- 
tion of  certain  scientific  doctrines^  there  is  in  his 
speech  what  is  better  than  all  systems^  the  communi- 
cative power  which  urges  a  generation  of  disciples 
along  the  path  of  independent  research^  with  Season 
for  guide,  and  Faith  for  aim."'^ 

Around  Rondelet,  in  those  years,  sometimes  indeed 
in  his  house — for  professors  in  those  days  took  private 
pupils  as  lodgers — worked  the  group  of  botanists  whom 
Linn^us  calls  ^^the  Fathers/^  the  authors  of  the 
descriptive  botany  of  the  sixteenth  century.  Their 
names,  and  those  of  their  disciples  and  their  disciples 
again,  ave  household  words  in  the  mouth  of  every 
gardener,  immortalised,  like  good  Bishop  Pellicier,  in 
the  plants  that  have  been  named  after  them.  The 
Lobelia  commemorates  Lobel,  one  of  Rondelet^s  most 
famous  pupils,  who  wrote  those  "  Adversaria ''  which 
contain  so  many  curious  sketches  of  E/ondelet's 
botanical  expeditions,  and  who  inherited  his  botanical 
(as  Joubert  his  biographer  inherited  his  anatomical) 
manuscripts.  The  Magnolia  commemorates  the 
Magnols ;  the  Sarracenia,  Sarrasin  of  Lyons ;  the 
Bauhinia,  Jean  Bauhin;  the  Fuchsia,  Bauhin^s  earlier 
German  master,  Leonard  Fuchs ;  and  the  Clusia — the 
received  name  of  that  terrible  ^^  Matapalo  ^^  or  ^^  Scotch 
attorney/^  of  the  West  Indies,  which  kills  the  hugest 
tree,  to  become  as  huge  a  tree  itself — immortalises 


328         RONDELET,  THE   HUGUENOT   NATURALIST. 

tlie  great  Olusius^  Charles  de  TEscluse,  citizen  of 
Arras^  who,  after  studying  civil  law  at  Louvain, 
philosophy  at  Marburg,  and  theology  at  Wittemberg 
under  Melancthon,  came  to  Montpellier  in  1551,  to 
live  in  Rondelet^s  own  house,  and  become  the  greatest 
botanist  of  his  age. 

These  were  Rondelet^s  palmy  days.  He  had  got  a 
theatre  of  anatomy  built  at  Montpellier,  where  he 
himself  dissected  publicly.  He  had,  says  tradition, 
a  little  botanic  garden,  such  as  were  springing  up  then 
in  several  universities,  specially  in  Italy.  He  had  a 
villa  outside  the  city,  whose  tower,  near  the  modern 
railway  station,  still  bears  the  name  of  the  ''  Mas  de 
Rondelet.^^  There,  too,  may  be  seen  the  remnants 
of  the  great  tanks,  fed  with  water  brought  through 
earthen  pipes  from  the  Fountain  of  Albe,  wherein  he 
kept  the  fish  whose  habits  he  observed.  Professor 
Planchon  thinks  that  he  had  salt-water  tanks  like- 
wise; and  thus  he  may  have  been  the  father  of  all 
^'  Aquarium s.^^  He  had  a  large  and  handsome  house 
in  the  city  itself,  a  large  practice  as  physician  in  the 
country  round;  money  flowed  in  fast  to  him,  and 
flowed  out  fast  likewise.  He  spent  much  upon 
building,  pulling  down,  rebuilding,  and  sent  the  bills 
in  seemingly  to  his  wife  and  to  his  guardian  angel 
Catharine.  He  himself  had  never  a  penny  in  his 
purse :  but  earned  the  money,  and  let  his  ladies  spend 
it ;  an  equitable  and  pleasant  division  of  labour  which 
most  married  men  would  do  well  to  imitate.  A 
generous,  affectionate,  careless  little  man,  he  gave 
away,  says  his  pupil  and  biographer,  Joubert,  his 
valuable  specimens  to  any  savant  who  begged  for 
them,  or  left  them  about  to  be  stolen  by  visitors,  who, 
like  too  many  collectors  in  all  ages,  possessed  light 


RONDELET,  THE   HUGUENOT   NATURALIST.  329 

fingers  and  lighter  consciences.  So  pacific  was  lie 
meanwhile,  and  so  brave  withal,  that  even  in  the 
fearful  years  of  ^^The  Troubles/^  he  would  never  carry 
sword,  nor  even  tuck  or  dagger :  but  went  about  on 
the  most  lonesome  journeys  as  one  who  wore  a  charmed 
life,  secure  in  God  and  in  his  calling,  which  was  to 
heal,  and  not  to  kill. 

These  were  the  golden  years  of  Rondelet^s  life  ;  but 
trouble  was  coming  on  him,  and  a  stormy  sunset  after 
a  brilliant  day.  He  lost  his  sister-in-law,  to  whom  he 
owed  all  his  fortunes,  and  who  had  watched  ever  since 
over  him  and  his  wife  like  a  mother ;  then  he  lost  his 
wife  herself  under  most  painful  circumstances;  then 
his  best-beloved  daughter.  Then  he  married  again, 
and  lost  the  son  who  was  born  to  him  ;  and  then  came, 
as  to  many  of  the  best  in  those  days,  even  sorer  trials, 
trials  of  the  conscience,  trials  of  faith. 

For  in  the  meantime  Rondelet  had  become  a  Pro- 
testant, like  many  of  the  wisest  men  round  him ;  like, 
so  it  would  seem  from  the  event,  the  majority  of  the 
university  and  the  burghers  of  Montpellier.  It  is  not 
to  be  wondered  at.  Montpellier  was  a  sort  of  halfway 
resting-place  for  Protestant  preachers,  whether  fugitive 
or  not,  who  were  passing  from  Basle,  Geneva,  or  Lyons, 
to  Marguerite  of  Navarre^ s  little  Protestant  court  at 
Pan  or  at  Nerac,  where  all  wise  and  good  men,  and 
now  and  then  some  foolish  and  fanatical  ones,  found 
shelter  and  hospitality.  Thither  Calvin  himself  had 
been,  passing  probably  through  Montpellier,  and  leaving 
— as  such  a  man  was  sure  to  leave — the  mark  of  his 
foot  behind  him.  At  Lyons,  no  great  distance  up  the 
Rhone,  Marguerite  had  helped  to  establish  an  organised 
Protestant  community;  and  when  in  1536  she  herself 
had  passed  through  Montpellier,  to  visit  her  brother 


330         RONDELET,  THE   HUaUENOT  NATURALIST. 

at  Valence^  and  Montmorency^s  camp  at  Avignon^  she 
took  with,  her  doubtless  Protestant  chaplains  of  her 
own^  who  spoke  wise  words — it  may  be  that  she  spoke 
wise  words  herself — to  the  ardent  and  inquiring  students 
of  Montpellier.  Moreover^  Rondelet  and  his  disciples 
had  been  for  years  past  in  constant  communication 
with  the  Protestant  savants  of  Switzerland  and 
Germany,  among  whom  the  knowledge  of  nature  was 
progressing  as  it  never  had  progressed  before.  For — 
it  is  a  fact  always  to  be  remembered — it  was  only  in 
the  free  air  of  Protestant  countries  the  natural  sciences 
could  grow  and  thrive.  They  sprung  up,  indeed,  in 
Italy  after  the  restoration  of  Greek  literature  in  the 
fifteenth  century ;  but  they  withered  there  again  only 
too  soon  under  the  blighting  upas  shade  of  super- 
stition. Transplanted  to  the  free  air  of  Switzerland, 
of  Germany,  of  Britain,  and  of  Montpellier,  then  half 
Protestant,  they  developed  rapidly  and  surely,  simply 
because  the  air  was  free  ;  to  be  checked  again  in  Prance 
by  the  return  of  superstition  with  despotism  super- 
added, until  the  eve  of  the  great  French  Revolution. 

So  Eondelet  had  been  for  some  years  Protestant. 
He  had  hidden  in  his  house  for  a  long  while  a  monk 
who  had  left  his  monastery.  He  had  himself  written 
theological  treatises :  but  when  his  Bishop  Pellicier 
was  imprisoned  on  a  charge  of  heresy,  Rondelet  burnt 
his  manuscripts,  and  kept  his  opinions  to  himself. 
Still  he  was  a  suspected  heretic,  at  last  seemingly  a 
notorious  one ;  for  only  the  year  before  his  death, 
going  to  visit  patients  at  Perpignan,  he  was  waylaid 
by  the  Spaniards,  and  had  to  get  home  through  by- 
passes of  the  Pyrenees,  to  avoid  being  thrown  into  the 
Inquisition. 

And  those  were  times  in  which  it  was  necessary  for 


EONDELET,  THE   HUGUENOT   NATURALIST.  331 

a  man  to  be  careful^  unless  lie  had  made  up  his  mind 
to  be  burned.  For  more  than  thirty  years  of  Rondelet^s 
life  the  burning  had  gone  on  in  his  neighbourhood ; 
intermittently  it  is  true :  the  spasms  of  superstitious 
fury  being  succeeded_,  one  may  charitably  hope^  by  pity 
and  remorse;  but  still  the  burnings  had  gone  on.  The 
Benedictine  monk  of  St.  Maur^  who  writes  the  history 
of  Languedoc^  says,  quite  en  passant,  how  someone 
was  burnt  at  Toulouse  in  1553,  luckily  only  in  e^gj, 
for  he  had  escaped  to  Geneva  :  but  he  adds,  '^  next  year 
they  burned  several  heretics/''  it  being  not  worth  while 
to  mention  their  names.  In  1556  they  burned  alive  at 
Toulouse  Jean  Escalle,  a  poor  Franciscan  monk,  who 
had  found  his  order  intolerable ;  while  one  Pierre  de 
Lavaur,  who  dared  preach  Calvinism  in  the  streets  of 
Nismes,  was  hanged  and  burnt.  So  had  the  score  of 
judicial  murders  been  increasing  year  by  year,  till  it 
had  to  be,  as  all  evil  scores  have  to  be  in  this  world, 
paid  off  with  interest,  and  paid  off  especially  against 
the  ignorant  and  fanatic  monks  who  for  a  whole  gene- 
ration, in  every  university  and  school  in  France,  had 
been  howling  down  sound  science,  as  well  as  sound 
religion  ;  and  at  Montpellier  in  1560-61,  their  debt  was 
paid  them  in  a  very  ugly  way.  News  came  down  to 
the  hot  southerners  of  Languedoc  of  the  so-called 
conspiracy  of  Amboise. — How  the  Due  de  Guise  and  the 
Cardinal  de  Lorraine  had  butchered  the  best  blood  in 
France  under  the  pretence  of  a  treasonable  plot ;  how 
the  King  of  Navarre  and  the  Prince  de  Conde  had  been 
arrested ;  then  how  Conde  and  Coligny  were  ready  to 
take  up  arms  at  the  head  of  all  the  Huguenots  of 
France,  and  try  to  stop  this  life-long  torturing,  by 
sharp  shot  and  cold  steel ;  then  how  in  six  months^ 
time  the  king  would  assemble  a  general  council  to 


332  RONDELET,  THE   HUGUENOT   NATURALIST. 

settle  the  question  between  Catholics  and  Huguenots. 
The  Huguenots,  guessing  how  that  would  end^  resolved 
to  settle  the  question  for  themselves.  They  rose  in 
one  city  after  another^  sacked  the  churches,  destroyed 
the  images^  put  down  by  main  force  superstitious  pro- 
cessions and  dances ;  and  did  many  things  only  to  be 
excused  by  the  exasperation  caused  by  thirty  years 
of  cruelty.  At  Montpellier  there  was  hard  fighting, 
murders — so  say  the  Catholic  historians — of  priests  and 
monks,  sack  of  the  new  cathedral,  destruction  of  the 
noble  convents  which  lay  in  a  ring  round  Montpellier. 
The  city  and  the  university  were  in  the  hands  of  the 
Huguenots,  and  Montpellier  became  Protestant  on  the 
spot. 

Next  year  came  the  counter -blow.  There  were 
heavy  battles  with  the  Catholics  all  round  the  neigh- 
bourhood, destruction  of  the  suburbs,  threatened  siege 
and  sack,  and  years  of  misery  and  poverty  for  Mont- 
pellier and  all  who  were  therein. 

Horrible  was  the  state  of  France  in  those  times  of 
the  wars  of  religion  which  began  in  1562  ;  the  times 
which  are  spoken  of  usually  as  ^'  The  Troubles,^''  as  if 
men  did  not  wish  to  allude  to  them  too  openly.  Then, 
and  afterwards  in  the  wars  of  the  League,  deeds  were 
done  for  which  language  has  no  name.  The  popula- 
tion decreased.  The  land  lay  untilled.  The  fair  face 
of  Prance  was  blackened  with  burnt  homesteads  and 
ruined  towns.  Ghastly  corpses  dangled  in  rows  upon 
the  trees,  or  floated  down  the  blood-stained  streams. 
Law  and  order  were  at  an  end.  Bands  of  robbers 
prowled  in  open  day,  and  bands  of  wolves  likewise. 
But  all  through  the  horrors  of  the  troubles  we  catch 
sight  of  the  little  fat  doctor  riding  all  unarmed  to  see 
his  patients  throughout  Languedoc;  going  yast   dis- 


BONDELET,  THE   HUGUENOT   NATURALIST.  333 

tances,  his  biographers  say,  by  means  of  regular 
relays  of  horses,  till  he  too  broke  down.  Well,  for 
him,  perhaps,  that  he  broke  down  when  he  did ;  for 
capture  and  recapture,  massacre  and  pestilence,  were 
the  fate  of  Montpellier  and  the  surrounding  country, 
till  the  better  times  of  Henry  IV.  and  the  Edict  of 
Nantes  in  1598,  when  liberty  of  worship  was  given  to 
the  Protestants  for  awhile. 

In  the  burning  summer  of  1566,  Eondelet  went  a 
long  journey  to  Toulouse,  seemingly  upon  an  errand  of 
charity,  to  settle  some  law  affairs  for  his  relations. 
The  sanitary  state  of  the  southern  cities  is  bad  enough 
still.  It  must  have  been  horrible  in  those  days  of 
barbarism  and  misrule.  Dysentery  was  epidemic  at 
Toulouse  then,  and  Rondelet  took  it.  He  knew  from 
the  first  that  he  should  die.  He  was  worn  out,  it  is 
said,  by  over- exertion  ;  by  sorrow  for  the  miseries  of 
the  land;  by  fruitless  struggles  to  keep  the  peace,  and 
to  strive  for  moderation  in  days  when  men  were  all 
immoderate.  But  he  rode  away  a  day^s  journey — he 
took  two  days  over  it,  so  weak  he  was — in  the  blazing 
July  sun,  to  a  friend^s  sick  wife  at  Realmont,  and 
there  took  to  his  bed,  and  died  a  good  man^s  death. 
The  details  of  his  death  and  last  illness  were  written 
and  published  by  his  cousin  Claude  Formy ;  and  well 
worth  reading  they  are  to  any  man  who  wishes  to 
know  how  to  die.  Rondelet  would  have  no  tidings  of 
his  illness  sent  to  Montpellier.  He  was  happy,  he 
said,  in  dying  away  from  the  tears  of  his  household, 
and  ^^safe  from  insult.''^  He  dreaded,  one  may  suppose, 
lest  priests  and  friars  should  force  their  way  to  his 
bedside,  and  try  to  extort  some  recantation  from  the 
great  savant,  the  honour  and  glory  of  their  city.  So 
they  sent  for  no  priest  to  Realmont ;  but  round  his  bed 


334         EONDELET,  THE   HUGUENOT   NATURALIST. 

a  knot  of  Calvinist  gentlemen  and  ministers  read  the 
Scriptures,  and  sang  David^s  psalms,  and  prayed ;  and 
Rondelet  prayed  with  them  through  long  agonies,  and 
so  went  home  to  God. 

The  Benedictine  monk-historian  of  Languedoc^  in 
all  his  voluminous  folios,  never  mentions,  as  far  as  I 
can  find,  Eondelet^s  existence.  Why  should  he  ?  The 
man  was  only  a  druggist's  son  and  a  heretic,  who 
healed  diseases,  and  collected  plants^  and  wrote  a 
book  on  fish.  But  the  learned  men  of  Montpellier, 
and  of  all  Europe,  had  a  very  different  opinion  of  him. 
His  body  was  buried  at  Realmont;  but  before  the 
schools  of  Toulouse  they  set  up  a  white  marble  slab, 
and  an  inscription  thereon  setting  forth  his  learning 
and  his  virtues ;  and  epitaphs  on  him  were  com- 
posed by  the  learned  throughout  Europe,  not  only  in 
French  and  Latin,  but  in  Greek,  Hebrew,  and  even 
Chaldee. 

So  lived  and  so  died  a  noble  man ;  more  noble,  to 
my  mind,  than  many  a  victorious  warrior,  or  successful 
statesman,  or  canonised  saint.  To  know  facts,  and  to 
heal  diseases,  were  the  two  objects  of  his  life.  For 
them  he  toiled,  as  few  men  have  toiled ;  and  he  died 
in  harness,  at  his  work — the  best  death  any  man 
can  die. 


"»'.',"*-<« 

«•--::;::■;■; 


VESALIUS  THE  ANATOMIST. 


VESALIUS  THE  ANATOMIST.  =' 


I  CANNOT  begin  a  sketch,  of  tlie  life  of  this  great  man 
better  than  by  trying  to  describe  a  scene  so  pictu- 
resque, so  tragic  in  the  eyes  of  those  who  are  wont  to 
mourn  over  human  follies,  so  comic  in  the  eyes  of 
those  who  prefer  to  laugh  over  them,  that  the  reader 
will  not  be  likely  to  forget  either  it  or  the  actors 
in  it. 

It  is  a  darkened  chamber  in  the  College  of  Alcala, 
in  the  year  1 562_,  wbere  lies,  probably  in  a  huge  four- 
post  bed,  shrouded  in  stifling  hangings,  the  beir- 
apparent  of  the  greatest  empire  in  the  then  world,  Don 
Carlos,  only  son  of  Philip  II.  and  heir-apparent  of 
Spain,  the  Netherlands,  and  all  the  Indies.  A  short 
sickly  boy  of  sixteen,  witb  a  bull  head,  a  crooked 
shoulder,  a  short  leg,  and  a  brutal  temper,  he  will  not 
be  missed  by  the  world  if  he  should  die.  His  profligate 
career  seems  to  have  brought  its  own  punishment.  To 
the  scandal  of  his  father,  who  tolerated  no  one^s  vices 
save  his  own,  as  well  as  to  the  scandal  of  the  university 
authorities  of  Alcala,  he  has  been  scouring  the  streets 
at  the  head  of  the  most  profligate  students,  insulting 
women,  even  ladies  of  rank^  and  amenable  only  to  his 

*  This  lecture  was  given  at  Cambridge  in  1869. 
VOL.   I. — H.  E.  ,  Z 


338  YESALIUS   THE   ANATOMIST. 

lovely  young  stepmotlier,  Elizabetb.  of  Valois^  Isabel  do 
la  Paz^  as  the  Spaniards  call  her,  the  daughter  of 
Catherine  de  Medicis,  and  sister  of  the  King  of  France. 
Don  Carlos  should  have  married  her,  had  not  his 
worthy  father  found  it  more  advantageous  for  the 
crown  of  Spain,  as  well  as  more  pleasant  for  him, 
Philip,  to  marry  her  himself.  Whence  came  heart- 
burnings,  rage,  jealousies,  romances,  calumnies,  of 
which  two  last — in  as  far  at  least  as  they  concern  poor 
Elizabeth — no  wise  man  now  believes  a  word. 

Going  on  some  errand  on  which  he  had  no  business 
— there  are  two  stories,  neither  of  them  creditable  nor 
necessary  to  repeat — Don  Carlos  has  fallen  downstairs 
and  broken  his  head.  He  comes,  by  his  Portuguese 
mother^s  side,  of  a  house  deeply  tainted  with  insanity ; 
and  such  an  injury  may  have  serious  consequences. 
However,  for  nine  days  the  wound  goes  on  well,  and 
Don  Carlos,  having  had  a  wholesome  fright,  is,  accord- 
ing to  Doctor  Olivarez,  the  medico  de  camara,  a  very 
good  lad,  and  lives  on  chicken  broth  and  dried  plums. 
But  on  the  tenth  day  comes  on  numbness  of  the  left 
side,  acute  pains  in  the  head,  and  then  gradually 
shivering,  high  fever,  erysipelas.  His  head  and  neck 
swell  to  an  enormous  size ;  then  comes  raging  delirium,, 
then  stupefaction,  and  Don  Carlos  lies  as  one  dead. 

A  modern  surgeon  would,  probably,  thanks  to  that 
training  of  which  Vesalius  may  be  almost  called  the 
father,  have  had  little  difficulty  in  finding  out  what  was 
the  matter  with  the  luckless  lad,  and  little  difficulty  in 
removing  the  evil,  if  it  had  not  gone  too  far.  But  the 
Spanish  physicians  were  then,  as  many  of  them  are 
said  to  be  still,  as  far  behind  the  world  in  surgery  as 
in  other  things ;  and  indeed  surgery  itself  was  then 
in  its  infancy,  because  men,  ever  since  the  early  Greek 


VESALTUS   THE   ANATOMIST.  339 

schools  of  Alexandria  liad  died  out^  had  been  for  cen- 
turies feeding  their  minds  with  anything  rather  than 
with  facts.  Therefore  the  learned  morosophs  who  were 
gathered  round  Don  Carlos^s  sick  bed  had  become, 
according  to  their  own  confession^  utterly  confused, 
terrified,  and  at  their  wits^  end. 

It  is  the  7th  of  May,  the  eighteenth  day  after  the 
accident,  according  to  Olivarez's  story  :  he  and  Dr. 
Vega  have  been  bleeding  the  unhappy  prince,  enlarging 
the  wound  twice,  and  torturing  him  seemingly  on  mere 
guesses.  ^^I  believe,^'  says  Olivarez,  ^^that  all  was 
done  well :  but  as  I  have  said,  in  wounds  in  the  head 
there  are  strange  labyrinths.^ ^  So  on  the  7th  they 
stand  round  the  bed  in  despair.  Don  Garcia  de  Toledo, 
the  princess  faithful  governor,  is  sitting  by  him,  worn 
out  with  sleepless  nights,  and  trying  to  supply  to  the 
poor  boy  that  mother's  tenderness  which  he  has  never 
known.  Alva,  too,  is  there,  stern,  self-compressed,  most 
terrible,  and  yet  most  beautiful.  He  has  a  God  on 
earth,  and  that  is  Philip  his  master ;  and  though  he 
has  borne  much  from  Don  Carlos  already,  and  will 
have  to  bear  more,  yet  the  wretched  lad  is  to  him  as  a 
son  of  God,  a  second  deity,  who  will  by  right  divine 
succeed  to  the  inheritance  of  the  first ;  and  he  watches 
this  lesser  deity  struggling  between  life  and  death  with 
an  intensity  of  which  we,  in  these  less  loyal  days,  can 
form  no  notion.  One  would  be  glad  to  have  a  glimpse 
of  what  passed  through  that  mind,  so  subtle  and  so 
ruthless,  so  disciplined  and  so  loyal  withal :  but  Alva 
was  a  man  who  was  not  given  to  speak  his  mind,  but 
to  act  it. 

One  would  wish,  too,  for  a  glimpse  of  what  was 
passing  through  the  mind  of  another  man,  who  has 
been  daily  in  that  sick  chamber,  according  to  Olivarez^s 

z  2 


340  VESALIUS   THE   ANATOMIST. 

statement,  since  the  first  of  tlie  month. :  but  lie  is  one 
who  has  had,  for  some  years  past,  even  more  reason 
than  Alva  for  not  speaking  his  mind.  What  he  looked 
like  we  know  well,  for  Titian  has  painted  him  from  the 
life — a  tall,  bold,  well-dressed  man,  with  a  noble  brain, 
square  and  yet  lofty,  short  curling  locks  and  beard,  an 
eye  which  looks  as  though  it  feared  neither  man  nor 
fiend — and  it  has  had  good  reason  to  fear  both — and 
features  which  would  be  exceeding  handsome,  but  for 
the  defiant  snub-nose.  That  is  Andreas  Vesalius,  of 
Brussels,  dreaded  and  hated  by  the  doctors  of  the  old 
school — suspect,  moreover,  it  would  seem  to  inqui- 
sitors and  theologians,  possibly  to  Alva  himself ;  for  he 
has  dared  to  dissect  human  bodies ;  he  has  insulted  the 
mediaevalists  at  Paris,  Padua,  Bologna,  Pisa,  Venice,  in 
open  theatre ;  he  has  turned  the  heads  of  all  the  young 
surgeons  in  Italy  and  France;  he  has  written  a  great 
book,  with  prints  in  it,  designed,  some  say,  by  Titian 
— they  were  actually  done  by  another  Netherlander, 
John  of  Calcar,  near  Oleves — in  which  he  has  dared  to 
prove  that  Galenas  anatomy  was  at  fault  throughout, 
and  that  he  had  been  describing  a  monkey^s  inside 
when  he  had  pretended  to  be  describing  a  man's  ;  and 
thus,  by  impudence  and  quackery,  he  has  wormed 
himself — this  Netherlander,  a  heretic  at  heart,  as  all 
Netherlanders  are,  to  God  as  well  as  to  Galen — into 
the  confidence  of  the  late  Emperor  Charles  V.,  and 
gone  campaigning  with  him  as  one  of  his  physicians, 
anatomising  human  bodies  even  on  the  battle-field, 
and  defacing  the  likeness  of  Deity ;  and  worse  than 
that,  the  most  religious  King  Philip  is  deceived  by 
him  likewise,  and  keeps  him  in  Madrid  in  wealth  and 
honour;  and  now,  in  the  princess  extreme  danger,  the 
king  has  actually  sent  for  him,  and  bidden  him  try 


VESALIUS    THE   ANATOMIST.  341 

liis  skill — a  man  wlio  knows  notHng  save  about  bones 
and  muscles  and  the  outside  of  the  body_,  and  is 
unworthy  the  name  of  a  true  physician. 

One  can  conceive  the  rage  of  the  old  Spaniah  pedants 
at  the  Netherlander^ s  appearance^  and  still  more  at 
what  followed^  if  we  are  to  believe  Hugo  Bloet  of  Delft, 
his  countryman  and  contemporary.*  Vesalius,  he  says, 
saw  that  the  surgeons  had  bound  up  the  wound  so  tight 
that  an  abscess  had  formed  outside  the  skull,  which 
could  not  break :  he  asserted  that  the  only  hope  lay 
in  opening  it ;  and  did  so,  Philip  having  given  leave, 
^^  by  two  cross-cuts.  Then  the  lad  returned  to  himself, 
as  if  awakened  from  a  profound  sleep,  affirming  that  he 
owed  his  restoration  to  life  to  the  German  doctor.''^ 

Dionysius  Daza,  who  was  there  with  the  other 
physicians  and  surgeons,  tells  a  different  story :  ^'  The 
most  learned,  famous,  and  rare  Baron  Vesalius,^'  he 
says,  advised  that  the  skull  should  be  trepanned  ;  but 
his  advice  was  not  followed. 

Olivarez's  account  agrees  with  that  of  Daza.  They 
had  opened  the  wounds,  he  says,  down  to  the  skull 
before  Vesalius  came.  Vesalius  insisted  that  the  injury 
lay  inside  the  skull,  and  wished  to  pierce  it.  Olivarez 
spends  much  labour  in  proving  that  Vesalius  had  ^^  no 

*  I  owe  this  account  of  Bloet's — whicli  appears  to  me  the  only  one 
trustworthy — to  the  courtesy  and  erudition  of  Professor  Henry  Morley, 
who  finds  it  quoted  from  Bloet's  "Acroama,"  in  the  "  Observationum 
Medicarum  Kariorum,"  lib,  vii.,  of  John  Theodore  Schenk.  Those  who 
wish  to  know  several  curious  passages  of  Vesalius's  life,  which  I  have 
not  inserted  in  this  article,  would  do  well  to  consult  one  by  Professor 
Morley,  "  Anatomy  in  Long  Clothes,"  in  "  Eraser's  Magazine  "  for 
November,  1853.  May  I  express  a  hope,  which  I  am  sure  will  be 
ahared  by  all  who  have  read  Professor  Morley's  biographies  of  Jerome 
Garden  and  of  Cornelius  Agrippa,  that  he  will  find  leisure  to  return 
to  the  study  of  Yesalius's  life  ;  and  will  do  for  him  what  he  has  done 
for  the  two  just-mentioned  writers  ? 


342  YESALIUS   THE   ANATOMIST. 

great  foundation  for  his  opinion  :  '^  but  confesses  that 
he  never  changed  that  opinion  to  the  last^  though  all 
the  Spanish  doctors  were  against  him.  Then  on  the 
6th^  he  says^  the  Bachelor  Torres  came  from  Madrid, 
and  advised  that  the  skull  should  be  laid  bare  once 
more ;  and  on  the  7th,  there  being  still  doubt  whether 
the  skull  was  not  injured,  the  operation  was  performed 
— by  whom  it  is  not  said — but  without  any  good 
result,  or,  according  to  Olivarez,  any  discovery,  save 
that  Vesalius  was  wrong,  and  the  skull  uninjured. 

Whether  this  second  operation  of  the  7th  of  May- 
was  performed  by  Vesalius,  and  whether  it  was  that  of 
which  Bloet  speaks,  is  an  open  question.  Olivarez^s 
whole  relation  is  apologetic,  written  to  justify  himself 
and  his  seven  Spanish  colleagues,  and  to  prove  Vesalius 
in  the  wrong.  Public  opinion,  he  confesses,  had  been 
very  fierce  against  him.  The  credit  of  Spanish  medicine 
was  at  stake :  and  we  are  not  bound  to  believe  im- 
plicitly a  paper  drawn  up  under  such  circumstances 
for  Philip^ s  eye.  This,  at  least,  we  gather  :  that  Don 
Carlos  was  never  trepanned,  as  is  commonly  said ;  and 
this,  also,  that  whichever  of  the  two  stories  is  true, 
equally  puts  Vesalius  into  direct,  and  most  unpleasant, 
antagonism  to  the  Spanish  doctors.* 

But  Don  Carlos  still  lay  senseless ;  and  yielding  to 
popular  clamour,  the  doctors  called  in  the  aid  of  a 
certain  Moorish  doctor,  from  Valencia,  named  Priota- 
rete,  whose  unguents,  it  was  reported,  had  achieved 
many  miraculous  cures.    The  unguent,  however,  to  the 

*  Olivarez's  "Eelacion"  is  to  be  found  in  the  Granvelle  State 
Papers.  For  the  general  account  of  Don  Carlos's  illness,  and  of  the 
miraculous  agencies  bj  which  his  cure  was  said  to  have  been  effected, 
the  general  reader  should  consult  Miss  Frere's  "  Biography  of 
Elizabeth  of  Valois,"  vol.  i.  pp.  307-19. 


VESALIUS   THE   ANATOMIST.  343 

Horror  of  the  doctors,  burned  the  skull  till  the  bone 
was  as  black  as  the  colour  of  ink;  and  Olivarez 
declares  he  believes  it  to  have  been  a  preparation  of 
pure  caustic.  On  the  morning  of  the  9th  of  May,  the 
Moor  and  his  unguents  were  sent  away,  ^^  and  went  to 
Madrid,  to  send  to  heaven  Hernando  de  Vega,  while 
the  prince  went  back  to  our  method  of  cure.''^ 

Considering  what  happened  on  the  morning  of  the 
10th  of  May,  we  should  now  presume  that  the  second 
opening  of  the  abscess,  whether  by  Vesalius  or  some- 
one else,  relieved  the  pressure  on  the  brain;  that  a 
critical  period  of  exhaustion  followed,  probably  pro- 
longed by  the  Moor^s  premature  caustic,  which  stopped 
the  suppuration  :  but  thatGod^s  good  handiwork,  called 
nature,  triumphed  at  last ;  and  that  therefore  it  came 
to  pass  that  the  prince  was  out  of  danger  within 
three  days  of  the  operation.  But  he  was  taught,  it 
seems,  to  attribute  his  recovery  to  a  very  different 
source  from  that  of  a  German  knife.  For  on  the 
morning  of  the  9th,  when  the  Moor  was  gone,  and 
Don  Carlos  lay  seemingly  lifeless,  there  descended  into 
his  chamber  a  Deus  e  machind,  or  rather  a  whole 
pantheon  of  greater  or  lesser  deities,  who  were  to  effect 
that  which  medical  skill  seemed  not  to  have  effected. 
Philip  sent  into  the  princess  chamber  several  of  the 
precious  relics  which  he  usually  carried  about  with 
him.  The  miraculous  image  of  the  Virgin  of  Atocha, 
in  embroidering  garments  for  whom,  Spanish  royalty, 
male  and  female,  has  spent  so  many  an  hour  ere  now, 
was  brought  in  solemn  procession  and  placed  on  an 
altar  at  the  foot  of  the  princess  bed ;  and  in  the 
afternoon  there  entered,  with  a  procession  likewise,  a 
shrine  containing  the  bones  of  a  holy  anchorite,  one 
Pray  Diego,  ^^  whose  life  and  miracles,^^  says  Olivarez, 


344  YESALIUS   THE   ANATOMIST, 

"  are  so  notorious  :  ^'  and  the  bones  of  St.  Justus  and 
St.  Pastor^  tlie  tutelar  saints  of  the  university  of  Alcala. 
Amid  solemn  litanies  the  relics  of  Fray  Diego  were 
laid  upon  the  prince's  pillow,  and  the  sudarium,  or 
mortuary  cloth,  which  had  covered  his  face,  was  placed 
upon  the  prince's  forehead. 

Modern  science  might  object  that  the  presence  of 
so  many  personages,  however  pious  or  well  intentioned, 
in  a  sick  chamber  on  a  hot  Spanish  May  day,  especially 
as  the  bath  had  been,  for  some  generations  past,  held 
in  religious  horror  throughout  Spain,  as  a  sign  of 
Moorish  and  Mussulman  tendencies,  might  have  some- 
what interfered  with  the  chances  of  the  poor  boy's 
recovery.  Nevertheless  the  event  seems  to  have 
satisfied  Philip^s  highest  hopes  ;  for  that  same  night 
(so  Don  Carlos  afterwards  related)  the  holy  monk 
Diego  appeared  to  him  in  a  vision,  wearing  the  habit 
of  St.  Francis,  and  bearing  in  his  hand  a  cross  of 
reeds  tied  with  a  green  band.  The  prince  stated  that 
he  first  took  the  apparition  to  be  that  of  the  blessed 
St.  Francis  ;  but  not  seeing  the  stigmata,  he  exclaimed, 
^^  How  ?  Dost  thou  not  bear  the  marks  of  the  wounds  ?  '^ 
What  he  replied  Don  Carlos  did  not  recollect ;  save 
that  he  consoled  him,  and  told  him  that  he  should  not 
die  of  that  malady. 

Philip  had  returned  to  Madrid,  and  shut  himself 
up  in  grief  in  the  great  Jeronymite  monastery. 
Elizabeth  was  praying  for  her  step-son  before  the 
miraculous  images  of  the  same  city.  During  the  night 
of  the  9th  of  May  prayers  went  up  for  Don  Carlos  in 
all  the  churches  of  Toledo,  Alcala,  and  Madrid.  Alva 
stood  all  that  night  at  the  bed^s  foot.  Don  Ga^rcia  de 
Toledo  sat  in  the  arm-chair,  where  he  had  now  sat 
night  and  day  for  more  than  a  fortnight.     The  good 


VESALIUS    THE   ANATOMIST.  345 

preceptor^  Honorato  Juan^  afterwards  Bishop  of  Osma^ 
wrestled  in  prayer  for  tlie  lad  the  whole  night  through. 
His  prayer  was  answered :  probably  it  had  been 
answered  already,  without  his  being  aware  of  it.  Be 
that  as  it  may,  about  dawn  Don  Carlos^s  heavy  breath- 
ing ceased ;  he  fell  into  a  quiet  sleep ;  and  when  he 
awoke  all  perceived  at  once  that  he  was  saved. 

He  did  not  recover  his  sight,  seemingly  on  account 
of  the  erysipelas,  for  a  week  more.  He  then  opened 
his  eyes  upon  the  miraculous  image  of  Atocha,  and 
vowed  that,  if  he  recovered,  he  would  give  to  the 
Virgin,  at  four  different  shrines  in  Spain,  gold  plate  of 
four  times  his  weight ;  and  silver  plate  of  seven  times 
his  weight,  when  he  should  rise  from  his  couch.  So 
on  the  6th  of  June  he  rose,  and  was  weighed  in  a  fur 
coat  and  a  robe  of  damask,  and  his  weight  was  three 
arrobas  and  one  pound — seventy-six  pounds  in  all.  On 
the  14th  of  June  he  went  to  visit  his  father  at  the 
episcopal  palace  ; .  then  to  all  the  churches  and  shrines 
in  Alcala,  and  of  course  to  that  of  Fray  Diego,  whose 
body  it  is  said  he  contemplated  for  some  time  with 
edifying  devotion.  The  next  year  saw  Fray  Diego 
canonised  as  a  saint,  at  the  intercession  of  Philip  and 
his  son ;  and  thus  Don  Carlos  re-entered  the  world,  to 
be  a  terror  and  a  torment  to  all  around  him,  and  to 
die — not  by  Philip^ s  cruelty,  as  his  enemies  reported 
too  hastily  indeed,  yet  excusably,  for  they  knew 
him  to  be  capable  of  any  wickedness — but  simply  of 
constitutional  insanity. 

And  now  let  us  go  back  to  the  history  of  '^that 
most  learned,  famous,  and  rare  Baron  Vesalius,^''  who 
had  stood  by  and  seen  all  these  things  done ;  and  try 
if  we  cannot,  after  we  have  learned  the  history  of  his 
early  life,  guess  at  some  of  his  probable  meditations  on 


346  YESALIUS   THE   ANATOMIST. 

tliis  celebrated  clinical  case ;  and  guess  also  how  those 
meditations  may  have  affected  seriously  the  events  of 
his  after  life. 

Vesalius  (as  I  said)  was  a  Netherlander^  born  at 
Brussels  in  1513  or  1514.  His  father  and  grandfather 
had  been  medical  men  of  the  highest  standing  in  a 
profession  which  then,  as  now,  was  commonly  here- 
ditary. His  real  name  was  Wittag,  an  ancient  family 
of  Wesel,  on  the  Rhine,  from  which  town  either  he 
or  his  father  adopted  the  name  of  Vesalius,  according 
to  the  classicising  fashion  of  those  days.  Young 
Vesalius  was  sent  to  college  at  Louvain,  where  he 
learned  rapidly.  At  sixteen  or  seventeen  he  knew  not 
only  Latin,  but  Greek  enough  to  correct  the  proofs  of 
Galen,  and  Arabic  enough  to  become  acquainted  with 
the  works  of  the  Mussulman  physicians.  He  was  a 
physicist  too,  and  a  mathematician,  according  to  the 
knowledge  of  those  times ;  but  his  passion — the  study 
to  which  he  was  destined  to  devote  his  life — was 
anatomy. 

Little  or  nothing  (it  must  be  understood)  had  been 
done  in  anatomy  since  the  days  of  Galen  of  Pergamos, 
in  the  second  century  after  Christ,  and  very  little  even 
by  him.  Dissection  was  all  but  forbidden  among  the 
ancients.  The  Egyptians,  Herodotus  tells  us,  used  to 
pursue  with  stones  and  curses  the  embalmers  as  soon 
as  they  had  performed  their  unpleasant  office;  and 
though  Herophilus  and  Brasistratus  are  said  to  have 
dissected  many  subjects  under  the  protection  of 
Ptolemy  Soter  in  Alexandria  itself:  yet  the  public 
feeling  of  the  Greeks  as  well  as  of  the  Romans  con- 
tinued the  same  as  that  of  the  ancient  Egyptians ;  and 
Galen  was  fain — as  Vesalius  proved — to  supplement 
his  ignorance    of  the  human  frame  by  describing  that 


YESALIUS   THE   ANATOMIST.  847 

of  an  ape.  Dissection  was  equally  forbidden  among 
the  Mussulmans ;  and  the  great  Arabic  physicians 
could  do  no  more  than  comment  on  Galen.  The  same 
prejudice  extended  through  the  Middle  Age.  Medical 
men  were  all  clerks,  clerici,  and  as  such  forbidden  to 
shed  blood.  The  only  dissection,  as  far  as  I  am  aware, 
made  during  the  Middle  Age  was  one  by  Mundinus  in 
1306;  and  his  subsequent  commentaries  on  Galen — 
for  he  dare  allow  his  own  eyes  to  see  no  more  than 
Galen  had  seen  before  him — constituted  the  best 
anatomical  manual  in  Europe  till  the  middle  of  the 
fifteenth  century. 

Then,  in  Italy  at  least,  the  classic  Renaissance  gave 
fresh  life  to  anatomy  as  to  all  other  sciences.  Especially 
did  the  improvements  in  painting  and  sculpture  stir 
men  up  to  a  closer  study  of  the  human  frame.  Leonardo 
da  Vinci  wrote  a  treatise  on  muscular  anatomy.  The 
artist  and  the  sculptor  often  worked  together,  and 
realised  that  sketch  of  Michael  Angel o^s  in  which  he 
himself  is  assisting  Fallopius,  Vesalius^s  famous  pupil, 
to  dissect.  Vesalius  soon  found  that  his  thirst  for 
facts  could  not  be  slaked  by  the  theories  of  the  Middle 
Age;  so  in  1530  he  went  ofE  to  Montpellier,  where 
Francis  I.  had  just  founded  a  medical  school,  and 
where  the  ancient  laws  of  the  city  allowed  the  faculty 
each  year  the  body  of  a  criminal.  From  thence,  after 
becoming  the  fellow-pupil  and  the  friend  of  Eondelet, 
and  probably  also  of  Eabelais  and  those  other  lumi- 
naries of  Montpellier,  of  whom  I  spoke  in  my  essay 
on  Rondelet,  he  returned  to  Paris  to  study  under  old 
Sylvius,  whose  real  name  was  Jacques  Dubois,  alias 
Jock  o^  the  Wood ;  and  to  learn  less — as  he  complains 
himself — in  an  anatomical  theatre  than  a  butcher  might 
learn  in  his  shop. 


348  VESALIUS  THE   ANATOMIST. 

Were  it  not  that  tlie  whole  question  of  dissection 
is  one  over  which  it  is  right  to  draw  a  reverent  veil,  as 
a  thing  painful,  however  necessary  and  however  in- 
nocent, it  would  be  easy  to  raise  ghastly  laughter  in 
many  a  reader  by  the  stories  which  Yesalius  himself 
tells  of  his  struggles  to  learn  anatomy.  How  old 
Sylvius  tried  to  demonstrate  the  human  frame  from 
a  bit  of  a  dog,  fumbling  in  vain  for  muscles  which  he 
could  not  find,  or  which  ought  to  have  been  there, 
according  to  Galen,  and  were  not;  while  young 
Yesalius,  as  soon  as  the  old  pedant^s  back  was  turned, 
took  his  place,  and,  to  the  delight  of  the  students, 
found  for  him — provided  it  were  there — what  he  could 
not  find  himself; — how  he  went  body-snatching  and 
gibbet-robbing,  often  at  the  danger  of  his  life,  as  when 
he  and  his  friend  were  nearly  torn  to  pieces  by  the 
cannibal  dogs  who  haunted  the  Butte  de  Montfaucqn, 
or  place  of  public  execution ; — how  he  acquired,  by  a 
long  and  dangerous  process,  the  only  perfect  skeleton 
then  in  the  world,  and  the  hideous  story  of  the  robber 
to  whom  it  had  belonged — all  these  horrors  those  who 
list  may  read  for  themselves  elsewhere.  I  hasten  past 
them  with  this  remark — that  to  have  gone  through  the 
toils,  dangers,  and  disgusts  which  Vesalius  faced, 
argued  in  a  superstitious  and  cruel  age  like  his,  no 
common  physical  and  moral  courage,  and  a  deep  con- 
science that  he  was  doing  right,  and  must  do  it  at  all 
risks  in  the  face  of  a  generation  which,  peculiarly 
reckless  of  human  life  and  human  agony,  allowed  that 
frame  which  it  called  the  image  of  God  to  be  tortured, 
maimed,  desecrated  in  every  way  while  alive ;  and 
yet — straining  at  the  gnat  after  having  swallowed  the 
camel — forbade  it  to  be  examined  when  dead,  though 
for  the  purpose  of  alleviating  the  miseries  of  mankind. 


VESALIUS   THE   ANATOMIST.  349 

The  breaking  out  of  war  between  Francis  I.  and 
Charles  V.  drove  Vesalius  back  to  his  native  country 
and  Louvain ;  and  in  1535  we  hear  of  him  as  a 
surgeon  in  Charles  V/s  army.  He  saw,  most  pro- 
bably, the  Emperor's  invasion  of  Provence,  and  the 
disastrous  retreat  from  before  Montmorency's  fortified 
camp  at  Avignon,  through  a  country  in  which  that 
crafty  general  had  destroyed  every  article  of  human 
food,  except  the  half-ripe  grapes.  He  saw,  perhaps, 
the  Spanish  soldiers,  poisoned  alike  by  the  sour  fruit 
and  by  the  blazing  sun,  falling  in  hundreds  along  the 
white  roads  which  led  back  into  Savoy,  murdered  by 
the  peasantry  whose  homesteads  had  been  destroyed, 
stifled  by  the  weight  of  their  own  armour,  or  des- 
perately putting  themselves,  with  their  own  hands,  out 
of  a  world  which  had  become  intolerable.  Half  the 
army  perished.  Two  thousand  corpses  lay  festering 
between  Aix  and  Frejus  alone.  If  young  Vesalius 
needed  ^^  subjects,''  the  ambition  and  the  crime  of 
man  found  enough  for  him  in  those  blazing  September 
days. 

He  went  to  Italy,  probably  with  the  remnants  of 
the  army.  Where  could  he  have  rather  wished  to  find 
himself  ?  He  was  at  last  in  the  country  where  the 
human  mind  seemed  to  be  growing  young  once  more ; 
the  country  of  revived  arts,  revived  sciences,  learning, 
languages  ;  and — though,  alas  !  only  for  awhile — of 
revived  free  thought,  such  as  Europe  had  not  seen 
since  the  palmy  days  of  Greece.  Here  at  least  he 
would  be  appreciated ;  here  at  least  he  would  be 
allowed  to  think  and  speak  :  and  he  was  appreciated. 
The  Italian  cities,  who  were  then,  like  the  Athenians 
of  old,  ^^  spending  their  time  in  nothing  else  save  to 
hear  or  to  tell  something  new,"  welcomed  the  brave 


350  YES  ALIUS   THE    ANATOMIST. 

young  Fleming  and  his  novelties.  Within  two  years 
lie  was  professor  of  anatomy  at  Padua^  then  the  first 
school  in  the  world;  then  at  Bologna  and  at  Pisa 
at  the  same  time ;  last  of  all  at  Venice^  where  Titian 
painted  that  portrait  of  him  which  remains  unto  this 
day. 

These  years  were  for  him  a  continual  triumph; 
everywhere^  as  he  demonstrated  on  the  human  body, 
students  crowded  his  theatre^  or  hung  round  him  as 
he  walked  the  streets ;  professors  left  their  own  chairs 
— their  scholars  having  deserted  them  already — to  go 
and  listen  humbly  or  enviously  to  the  man  who  could 
give  them  what  all  brave  souls  throughout  half  Europe 
were  craving  for^  and  craving  in  vain — facts.  And  so, 
year  after  year_,  was  realised  that  scene  which  stands 
engraved  in  the  frontispiece  of  his  great  book — where, 
in  the  little  quaint  Oinquecento  theatre^  saucy  scholars, 
reverend  doctors,  gay  gentlemen,  and  even  cowled 
monks,  are  crowding  the  floor,  peeping  over  each 
other^s  shoulders,  hanging  on  the  balustrades;  while 
in  the  centre,  over  his  "  subject  ^^ — which  one  of  those- 
same  cowled  monks  knew  but  too  well — stands  young 
Vesalius,  upright,  proud,  almost  defiant,  as  one  who- 
knows  himself  safe  in  the  impregnable  citadel  of  fact ;: 
and  in  his  hand  the  little  blade  of  steel,  destined — 
because  wielded  in  obedience  to  the  laws  of  nature, 
which  are  the  laws  of  God — to  work  more  benefit  for 
the  human  race  than  all  the  swords  which  were  drawn 
in  those  days,  or  perhaps  in  any  other,  at  the  bid- 
ding of  most  Catholic  Emperors  and  most  Christian 
Kings. 

Those  were  indeed  days  of  triumph  for  Vesalius ; 
of  triumph  deserved,  because  earned  by  patient  and 
accurate  toil  in  a  good  cause :  but  Vesalius,  being  but 


YESALIUS   THE   ANATOMIST.  351 

a  mortal  man^  may  have  contracted  in  those  same 
days  a  temper  of  imperiousness  and  self-conceit,  such, 
as  he  showed  afterwards  when  his  pupil  Fallopius 
dared  to  add  fresh  discoveries  to  those  of  his  master. 
And  yet,  in  spite  of  all  Vesalius  knew,  how  little  he 
knew !  How  humbling  to  his  pride  it  would  have 
been  had  he  known  then-— perhaps  he  does  know  now 
— that  he  had  actually  again  and  again  walked,  as  it 
were^  round  and  round  the  true  theory  of  the  circula- 
tion of  the  blood,  and  yet  never  seen  it ;  that  that 
discovery  which,  once  made,  is  intelligible,  as  far  as 
any  phenomenon  is  intelligible,  to  the  merest  peasant, 
was  reserved  for  another  century,  and  for  one  of  those 
Englishmen  on  whom  Vesalius  would  have  looked  as 
semi-barbarians. 

To  make  a  long  story  short :  three  years  after  the 
publication  of  his  famous  book,  "  De  Corporis  Humani 
Fabrica,^^  he  left  Venice  to  cure  Charles  V.,  at 
Regensburg,  and  became  one  of  the  great  Emperor^ s 
physicians. 

This  was  the  crisis  of  Vesalius^s  life.  The  medicine 
with  which  he  had  worked  the  cure  was  China — 
Sarsaparilla,  as  we  call  it  now — brought  home  from 
the  then  newly- discovered  banks  of  the  Paraguay 
and  Uruguay,  where  its  beds  of  tangled  vine,  they 
say,  tinge  the  clear  waters  a  dark-brown  like  that  of 
peat,  and  convert  whole  streams  into  a  healthful  and 
pleasant  tonic.  On  the  virtues  of  this  China  (then 
supposed  to  be  a  root)  Vesalius  wrote  a  famous  little 
book,  into  which  he  contrived  to  interweave  his 
opinions  on  things  in  general,  as  good  Bishop 
Berkeley  did  afterwards  into  his  essay  on  the  virtues 
of  tar-water.  Into  this  book,  however,  Vesalius  in- 
troduced— as    Bishop    Berkeley  did  not — much,    and 


352  VESALIUS   THE   ANATOMIST. 

perhaps  too  mucli,  about  himself;  and  much^  though, 
perhaps  not  too  much^  about  poor  old  Galen^  and  his 
substitution  of  an  ape^s  inside  for  that  of  a  human 
being.  The  storm  which  had  been  long  gathering 
burst  upon  him.  The  old  school,  trembling  for 
their  time-honoured  reign,  bespattered,  with  all  that 
pedantry,  ignorance,  and  envy  could  suggest,  the  man 
who  dared  not  only  to  revolutionise  surgery,  but  to 
interfere  with  the  privileged  mysteries  of  medicine ; 
and,  over  and  above,  to  become  a  greater  favourite  at 
the  court  .of  the  greatest  of  monarchs.  While  such 
as  Eustachius,  himself  an  able  discoverer,  could  join 
in  the  cry,  it  is  no  wonder  if  a  lower  soul,  like  that 
of  Sylvius,  led  it  open-mouthed.  He  was  a  mean, 
covetous,  bad  man,  as  George  Buchanan  well  knew ; 
and,  according  to  his  nature,  he  wrote  a  furious  book 
— ^^  Ad  Vesani  calumnias  depulsandas.^^  The  pun- 
ning change  of  Vesalius  into  Vesanus  (madman)  was 
but  a  fair  and  gentle  stroke  for  a  polemic,  in  days 
in  which  those  who  could  not  kill  their  enemies 
with  steel  or  powder,  held  themselves  justified  in 
doing  so,  if  possible,  by  vituperation^  calumny,  and 
every  engine  of  moral  torture.  But  a  far  more 
terrible  weapon,  and  one  which  made  Vesalius  rage, 
and  it  may  be  for  once  in  his  life  tremble,  was  the 
charge  of  impiety  and  heresy.  The  Inquisition  was  a 
very  ugly  place.  It  was  very  easy  to  get  into  it, 
especially  for  a  Netherlander  :  but  not  so  easy  to  get 
out.  Indeed  Vesalius  must  have  trembled,  when  he 
saw  his  master,  Charles  V.,  himself  take  fright,  and 
actually  call  on  the  theologians  of  Salamanca  to  decide 
whether  it  was  lawful  to  dissect  a  human  body.  The 
monks,  to  their  honour,  used  their  common  sense, 
and  answered  Yes.     The  deed  was  so  plainly  useful, 


YESALIUS    THE   ANATOMIST.  353 

that  it  must  be  lawful  likewise.  But  Vesalius  did 
not  feel  that  he  had  triumphed.  He  dreaded,  pos- 
sibly, lest  the  storm  should  only  have  blown  over  for 
a  time.  He  fell,  possibly,  into  hasty  disgust  at  the 
folly  of  mankind,  and  despair  of  arousing  them  to 
use  their  common  sense,  and  acknowledge  their  true 
interest  and  their  true  benefactors.  At  all  events,  he 
threw  into  the  fire — so  it  is  said — all  his  unpublished 
manuscripts,  the  records  of  long  years  of  observation, 
and  renounced  science  thenceforth. 

We  hear  of  him  after  this  at  Brussels,  and  at 
Basle  likewise — in  which  latter  city,  in  the  company 
of  physicians,  naturalists,  and  Grecians,  he  must  have 
breathed  awhile  a  freer  air.  But  he  seems  to  have 
returned  thence  to  his  old  master  Charles  V.,  and  to 
have  finally  settled  at  Madrid  as  a  court  surgeon  to 
Philip  II.,  who  sent  him,  but  too  late,  to  extract  the 
lance  splinters  from  the  eye  of  the  dying  Henry  II. 

He  was  now  married  to  a  lady  of  rank  from  Brussels, 
Anne  van  Hamme  by  name;  and  their  daughter 
married  in  time  Philip  II. ^s  grand  falconer,  who  was 
doubtless  a  personage  of  no  small  social  rank.  Vesalius 
was  well  off  in  worldly  things ;  somewhat  fond,  it  is 
said,  of  good  living  and  of  luxury ;  inclined,  it  may 
be,  to  say,  ^^  Let  us  eat  and  drink,  for  to-morrow 
we  die,^^  and  to  sink  more  and  more  into  the  mere 
worldling,  unless  some  shock  should  awake  him  from 
his  lethargy. 

And  the  awakening  shock  did  come.  After  eight 
years  of  court  life,  he  resolved,  early  in  the  year  1564, 
to  go  on  a  pilgrimage  to  Jerusalem. 

The  reasons  for  so  strange  a  determination  are 
wrapped  in  mystery  and  contradiction.  The  common 
story  was  that  he  had  opened  a  corpse  to  ascertain 
YOL.  I. — H.  E.  2  a 


354  VESALIUS  THE  ANATOMIST. 

tlie  cause  of  death,  and  that,  to  the  horror  of  the 
bystanders,  the  heart  was  still  seen  to  beat ;  that  his 
enemies  accused  him  to  the  Inquisition,  and  that  he 
was  condemned  to  death,  a  sentence  which  was  com- 
muted to  that  of  going  on  pilgrimage.  But  here, 
at  the  very  outset,  accounts  differ.  One  says  that 
the  victim  was  a  nobleman,  name  not  given ;  another 
that  it  was  a  lady^s  maid,  name  not  given.  It  is  most 
improbable,  if  not  impossible,  that  Vesalius,  of  all 
men,  should  have  mistaken  a  living  body  for  a  dead 
one;  while  it  is  most  probable,  on  the  other  hand, 
that  his  medical  enemies  would  gladly  raise  such  a 
calumny  against  him,  when  he  was  no  longer  in  Spain 
to  contradict  it.  Meanwhile  Llorente,  the  historian 
of  the  Inquisition,  makes  no  mention  of  Vesalius 
having  been  brought  before  its  tribunal,  while  he 
does  mention  Vesalius^s  residence  at  Madrid.  Another 
story  is,  that  he  went  abroad  to  escape  the  bad  temper 
of  his  wife ;  another  that  he  wanted  to  enrich  himself. 
Another  story — and  that  not  an  unlikely  one — is, 
that  he  was  jealous  of  the  rising  reputation  of  his 
pupil  Pallopius,  then  professor  of  anatomy  at  Venice. 
This  distinguished  surgeon,  as  I  said  before,  had 
written  a  book,  in  which  he  added  to  Vesalius^ s  dis- 
coveries, and  corrected  certain  of  his  errors.  Vesalius 
had  answered  him  hastily  and  angrily,  quoting  his 
anatomy  from  memory;  for,  as  he  himself  complained, 
he  could  not  in  Spain  obtain  a  subject  for  dissection ; 
not  even,  he  said,  a  single  skull.  He  had  sent  his 
book  to  Venice  to  be  published,  and  had  heard,  seem- 
ingly, nothing  of  it.  He  may  have  felt  that  he  was 
falling  behind  in  the  race  of  science,  and  that  it  was 
impossible  for  him  to  carry  on  his  studies  in  Madrid ; 
and  so,  angry  with  his  own  laziness  and  luxury,  he 


VESALIUS   THE  AJTATOillST.   ,  .  358  -^V 

may  liave  felt  tlie  old  sacred  fire  flasli  up  in  hinr,  ^ntj  /  ^ 
Iiave  determined  to  go  to  Italy  and  beconuai  sf  s^n^ent 
and  a  worker  once  more.  '       ^  )  J  r  ^  ^ 

The  very  day  that  he  set  out,  Clusius  of  Arras, 
then  probably  the  best  botanist  in  the  world,  arrived 
at  Madrid ;  and,  asking  the  reason  of  Vesalius^s  depar- 
ture, was  told  by  their  fellow-countryman,  Charles  de 
Tisnacq,  procurator  for  the  affairs  of  the  Netherlands, 
that  Vesalius  had  gone  of  his  own  free  will,  and  with 
all  facilities  which  Philip  could  grant  him,  in  perform- 
ance of  a  vow  which  he  had  made  during  a  dangerous 
illness.  Here,  at  least,  we  have  a  drop  of  information, 
which  seems  taken  from  the  stream  sufficiently  near 
to  the  fountain-head:  but  it  must  be  recollected 
that  De  Tisnacq  lived  in  dangerous  times,  and  may 
have  found  it  necessary  to  walk  warily  in  them ;  that 
through  him  had  been  sent,  only  the  year  before,  that 
famous  letter  from  William  of  Orange,  Horn,  and 
Egmont,  the  fate  whereof  may  be  read  in  Mr.  Motley^s 
fourth  chapter;  that  the  crisis  of  the  Netherlands 
which  sprung  out  of  that  letter  was  coming  fast ;  and 
that,  as  De  Tisnacq  was  on  friendly  terms  with 
Egmont,  he  may  have  felt  his  head  at  times  somewhat 
loose  on  his  shoulders;  especially  if  he  had  heard 
Alva  say,  as  he  wrote,  ^^  that  every  time  he  saw  the 
despatches  of  those  three  senors,  they  moved  his 
choler  so,  that  if  he  did  not  take  much  care  to  temper 
it,  he  would  seem  a  frenzied  man.^^  In  such  times, 
De  Tisnacq  may  have  thought  good  to  return  a 
diplomatic  answer  to  a  fellow-countryman  concern- 
ing a  third  fellow-countryman,  especially  when  that 
countryman,  as  a  former  pupil  of  Melancthon  at 
Wittemberg,  might  himself  be  under  suspicion  of 
heresy,  and  therefore  of  possible  treason. 

2  A  2 


856  VESALIUS   THE   ANATOMIST. 

Be  tMs  as  it  may,  one  cannot  but  suspect  some 
strain  of  truth  in  tlie  story  about  the  Inquisition; 
for_,  whether  or  not  Vesalias  operated  on  Don  Carlos^ 
he  had  seen  with  his  own  eyes  that  miraculous  Virgin 
of  Atocha  at  the  bed^s  foot  of  the  prince.  He  had 
heard  his  recovery  attributed^  not  to  the  operation, 
but  to  the  intercession  of  Fray_,  now  Saint  Diego ;  ^ 
and  he  must  have  had  his  thoughts  thereon,  and 
may,  in  an  unguarded  moment,  have  spoken  them. 

For  he  was,  be  it  always  remembered,  a  Nether- 
lander. The  crisis  of  his  country  was  just  at  hand. 
Eebellion  was  inevitable,  and,  with  rebellion,  horrors 
unutterable;  and,  meanwhile,  Don  Carlos  had  set  his 
mad  brain  on  having  the  command  of  the  Netherlands. 
In  his  rage  at  not  having  it,  as  all  the  world  knows, 
he  nearly  killed  Alva  with  his  own  hands,  some  two 
years  after.  If  it  be  true  that  Don  Carlos  felt  a 
debt  of  gratitude  to  Vesalius,  he  may  (after  his  wont) 
have  poured  out  to  him  some  wild  confidence  about 
the  Netherlands,  to  have  even  heard  which  would  be  a 
crime  in  Philip^s  eyes.  And  if  this  be  but  a  fancy, 
still  Vesalius  was,  as  I  just  said,  a  Netherlander,  and 
one  of  a  brain  and  a  spirit  to  which  Philip^s  doings, 
and  the  air  of  the  Spanish  court,  must  have  been 
growing  ever  more  and  more  intolerable.  Hundreds 
of  his  country  folk,  perhaps  men  and  women  whom  he 
had  known,  were  being  racked,  burnt  alive,  buried 
alive,  at  the  bidding  of  a  jocular  ruffian,  Peter  Titel- 
mann,  the  chief  inquisitor.     The   ^''day  of  the  mau- 

*  In  justice  to  poor  Doctor  Olivarez,  it  must  be  said  that,  while 
he  allows  all  force  to  the  intercession  of  the  Virgin  and  of  Fray- 
Diego,  and  of  "many  just  persons,"  he  cannot  allow  that  there  was 
any  "miracle  properly  so  called,"  because  the  prince  was  cured 
according  to  "  natural  order,"  and  by  "  experimental  remedies  "  of 
the  physicians. 


VESALIUS   THE  ANATOMIST.  357 

hrulez,^'  and  tlie  wholesale  massacre  which,  followed  it, 
had  happened  but  two  years  before ;  and,  by  all  the  signs 
of  the  times,  these  murders  and  miseries  were  certain 
to  increase.  And  why  were  all  these  poor  wretches 
suffering  the  extremity  of  horror,  but  because  they 
would  not  believe  in  miraculous  images,  and  bones  of 
dead  friars,  and  the  rest  of  that  science  of  unreason 
and  unfact,  against  which  Vesalius  had  been  fighting 
all  his  life,  consciously  or  not,  by  using  reason  and 
observing  fact  ?  What  wonder  if,  in  some  burst  of 
noble  indignation  and  just  contempt,  he  forgot  a 
moment  that  he  had  sold  his  soul,  and  his  love  of 
science  likewise,  to  be  a  luxurious,  yet  uneasy,  hanger- 
on  at  the  tyrant's  court ;  and  spoke  unadvisedly  some 
word  worthy  of  a  German  man  ? 

As  to  the  story  of  his  unhappy  quarrels  with  his 
wife,  there  may  be  a  grain  of  truth  in  it  likewise. 
Vesalius^ s  religion  must  have  sat  very  lightly  on  him. 
The  man  who  had  robbed  churchyards  and  gibbets 
from  his  youth  was  not  likely  to  be  much  afraid  of 
apparitions  and  demons.  He  had  handled  too  many 
human  bones  to  care  much  for  those  of  saints.  He 
was  probably,  like  his  friends  of  Basle,  Montpellier,  and 
Paris,  somewhat  of  a  heretic  at  heart,  probably  some- 
what of  a  pagan,  while  his  lady,  Anne  van  Hamme, 
was  probably  a  strict  Catholic,  as  her  father,  being  a 
councillor  and  master  of  the  exchequer  at  Brussels,  was 
bound  to  be ;  and  freethinking  in  the  husband,  crossed 
by  superstition  in  the  wife,  may  have  caused  in  them 
that  wretched  vie  a  loart,  that  want  of  any  true  com- 
munion of  soul,  too  common  to  this  day  in  Catholic 
countries. 

Be  these  things  as  they  may — and  the  exact  truth 
of  them  will  now  be  never  known — Vesalius  set  out 


358  VESALIUS   THE   ANATOMIST. 

to  Jerusalem  in  the  spring  of  1564.  On  liis  way  he- 
visited  his  old  friends  at  Venice  to  see  about  his  book 
against  Fallopius.  The  Venetian  republic  received 
the  great  philosopher  with  open  arms.  Fallopius  was 
just  dead;  and  the  senate  offered  their  guest  the 
vacant  chair  of  anatomy.  He  accepted  it :  but  went 
on  to  the  East. 

He  never  occupied  that  chair;  wrecked  upon  the 
Isle  of  Zante^  as  he  was  sailing  back  from  Palestine^ 
he  died  miserably  of  fever  and  want^  as  thousands  of 
pilgrims  returning  from  the  Holy  Land  had  died 
before  him.  A  goldsmith  recognised  him ;  buried 
him  in  a  chapel  of  the  Virgin ;  and  piit  up  over  him  a 
simple  stone^  which  remained  till  late  years  ;  and  may 
remain_,  for  aught  I  know^  even  now. 

So  perished^  in  the  prime  of  life^  ^^  a  martyr  to  his 
love  of  science/^  to  quote  the  words  of  M.  Burggraeve 
of  Ghent,  his  able  biographer  and  commentator^  ^' the 
prodigious  man,  who  created  a  science  at  an  epoch 
when  everything  was  still  an  obstacle  to  his  progress ; 
a  man  whose  whole  life  was  a  long  struggle  of  know- 
ledge against  ignorance^  of  truth  against  lies.^^ 

Plaudite  :  Exeat :  with  Eondelet  and  Buchanan. 
And  whensoever  this  poor  foolish  world  needs  three^ 
such  men^  may  God  of  His  great  mercy  send  them. 


PAEACELSUS. 


PAMCELSUS/^^ 


I  TOLD  you  of  Vesalius  and  Eondelet  as  specimens  o£ 
the  men  who  three  hundred  years  ago  were  founding 
the  physical  science  of  the  present  day,  by  patient 
investigation  of  facts.  But  such  an  age  as  this  would 
naturally  produce  men  of  a  very  different  stamp,  men 
who  could  not  imitate  their  patience  and  humility; 
who  were  trying  for  royal  roads  to  knowledge,  and  to 
the  fame  and  wealth  which  might  be  got  out  of  know- 
ledge ;  who  meddled  with  vain  dreams  about  the  occult 
sciences,  alchemy,  astrology,  m.agic,  the  cabala,  and  so 
forth,  who  were  reputed  magicians,  courted  and  feared 
for  awhile,  and  then,  too  often,  died  sad  deaths. 

Such  had  been,  in  the  century  before,  the  famous 
Dr.  Faust  —  Faustus,  who  was  said  to  have  made 
a  compact  with  Satan — actually  one  of  the  inventors 
of  printing  —  immortalised  in  Goethe's  marvellous 
poem. 

Such,  in  the  first  half  of  the  sixteenth  century,  was 
Cornelius  Agrippa — a  doctor  of  divinity  and  a  knight- 
at-arms ;  secret-service  diplomatist  to  the  Emperor 
Maximilian  in  Austria;  astrologer,  though  unwilling,  to 
his  daughter  Margaret,  Eegent  of  the  Low  Countries ; 

*  This  lecture  was  given  at  Cambridge  in  1869,  and  has  not  had 
the  benefit  of  the  author's  corrections  for  the  press. 


362  PARACELSUS. 

writer  on  the  occult  sciences  and  of  the  famous  '*De 
Vanitate  Scientiarum/'  andwliat  not  ?  who  died  miserably 
at  the  age  of  forty-nine^  accused  of  magic  by  the  Do- 
minican monks  from  whom  he  had  rescued  a  poor  girl^ 
who  they  were  torturing  on  a  charge  of  witchcraft ;  and 
by  them  hunted  to  death ;  nor  to  death  only^  for  they 
spread  the  fable — such  as  you  may  find  in  Delrio  the 
Jesuit^s  ^^Disquisitions  on  Magic  ^^* — that  his  little  pet 
black  dog  was  a  familiar  spirit^  as  Butler  has  it  in 
^^Hudibras'^ 

Agrippa  kept  a  Stygian  pug 
r  the  garb  and  habit  of  a  dog — • 
That  was  his  taste  ;  and  the  cur 
Kead  to  th'  occult  philosopher, 
And  taught  him  subtly  to  maintain 
All  other  sciences  are  vain. 

Such  also  was  Jerome  Cardan^  the  Italian  scholar 
and  physician^  the  father  of  algebraic  science  (you  all 
recollect  Cardan's  rule),  believer  in  dreams,  prognostics^ 
astrology;  who  died^  too^  miserably  enough,  in  old  age. 

Cardan^s  sad  life,  and  that  of  Cornelius  Agrippa, 
you  can,  and  ought  to  read  for  yourselves,  in  two 
admirable  biographies,  as  amusing  as  they  are  learned, 
by  Professor  Morley,  of  the  London  University.  I 
have  not  chosen  either  of  them  as  a  subject  for  this 
lecture,  because  Mr.  Morley  has  so  exhausted  what  is 
to  be  known  about  them,  that  I  could  tell  you  nothing 
which  I  had  not  stolen  from  him. 

But  what  shall  I  say  of  the  most  famous  of  these 
men — Paracelsus  ?  whose  name  you  surely  know.  He 
too  has  been  immortalised  in  a  poem  which  you  all 
ought  to  have  read,  one  of  Robert  Browning^s  earliest 
and  one  of  his  best  creations. 

*  Delrio's  book,  a  famous  one  in  its  day,  was  published  about  1612. 


PAEACELSUS.  363 

I  think  we  must  accept  as  true  Mr.  Browning's 
interpretation  of  Paracelsus^s  character.  We  must 
believe  that  he  was  at  first  an  honest  and  high-minded, 
as  he  was  certainly  a  most  gifted,  man ;  that  he  went 
forth  into  the  world,  with  an  intense  sense  of  the  worth- 
lessness  of  the  sham  knowledge  of  the  pedants  and 
quacks  of  the  schools;  an  intense  belief  that  some 
higher  and  truer  science  might  be  discovered,  by  which 
diseases  might  be  actually  cured,  and  health,  long  life, 
happiness,  all  but  immortality,  be  conferred  on  man; 
an  intense  belief  that  he,  Paracelsus,  was  called  and 
chosen  by  God  to  find  out  that  great  mystery,  and  be 
a  benefactor  to  all  future  ages.  That  fixed  idea  might 
degenerate — did,  alas  !  degenerate — into  wild  self- 
conceit,  rash  contempt  of  the  ancients,  violent  abuse 
of  his  opponents.  But  there  was  more  than  this  in 
Paracelsus.  He  had  one  idea  to  which,  if  he  had  kept 
true,  his  life  would  have  been  a  happier  one — the  firm 
belief  that  all  pure  science  was  a  revelation  from  God ; 
that  it  was  not  to  be  obtained  at  second  or  third  hand, 
by  blindly  adhering  to  the  words  of  Galen  or  Hippo- 
crates or  Aristotle,  and  putting  them  (as  the  scholastic 
philosophers  round  him  did)  in  the  place  of  God  :  but 
by  going  straight  to  nature  at  first  hand,  and  listening 
to  what  Bacon  calls  ^^  the  voice  of  God  revealed  in 
facts.-*^  True  and  noble  is  the  passage  with  which  he 
begins  his  '*  Labyrinthus  Medicorum,^^  one  of  his 
attacks  on  the  false  science  of  his  day, 

^^  The  first  and  highest  book  of  all  healing,^^  he 
says,  "  is  called  wisdom,  and  without  that  book  no  man 
will  carry  out  anything  good  or  useful  .  .  .  And  that 
book  is  God  Himself.  For  in  Him  alone  who  hath 
created  all  things,  the  knowledge  and  principle  of  all 
things  dwells  .  .  .  without  Him  all  is  folly.   As  the  sun 


564  PARACELSUS. 

shines  on  us  from  above,  so  He  must  pour  into  us  from 
above  all  arts  whatsoever.  Therefore  the  root  of  all 
learning  and  cognition  is,  that  we  should  seek  first 
the  kingdom  of  God — the  kingdom  of  God  in  which 
all  sciences  are  founded.  ...  If  any  man  think  that 
nature  is  not  founded  on  the  kingdom  of  God,  he  knows 
nothing  about  it.  All  gifts/^  he  repeats  again  and 
again,  confused  and  clumsily  (as  is  his  wont),  but  with 
a  true  earnestness,  ^^are  from  God.^^ 

The  true  man  of  science,  with  Paracelsus,  is  he  who 
seeks  first  the  kingdom  of  God  in  facts,  investigating 
nature  reverently,  patiently,  in  faith  believing  that 
God,  who  understands  His  own  work  best,  will  make 
him  understand  it  likewise.  The  false  man  of  science 
is  he  who  seeks  the  kingdom  of  this  world,  who  cares 
nothing  about  the  real  interpretation  of  facts :  but  is  con- 
tent with  such  an  interpretation  as  will  earn  him  the  good 
things  of  this  world — the  red  hat  and  gown,  the  ambling 
mule,  the  silk  clothes,  the  partridges,  capons,  and 
pheasants,  the  gold  florins  chinking  in  his  palm.  At  such 
pretenders  Paracelsus  sneered,  at  last  only  too  fiercely, 
not  only  as  men  whose  knowledge  consisted  chiefly  in 
wearing  white  gloves,  but  as  rogues,  liars,  villains,  and 
every  epithet  which  his  very  racy  vocabulary,  quickened 
(it  is  to  be  feared)  by  wine  and  laudanum,  could  suggest. 
With  these  he  contrasts  the  true  men  of  science.  It  is 
difficult  for  us  now  to  understand  how  a  man  setting 
out  in  life  with  such  pure  and  noble  views  should 
descend  at  last  (if  indeed  he  did  descend)  to  be  a  quack 
and  a  conjuror — and  die  under  the  imputation  that 

Bonibastes  kept  a  devil's  bird 
Hid  in  the  pommel  of  his  sword, 

and  have,  indeed,  his  very  name.  Bombast,  used  to 


PAKACELSUS.  365 

this  day  as  a  synonym  of  loud^  violent,  and  empty  talk. 
To  understand  it  at  all,  we  must  go  back  and  think  a 
little  over  these  same  occult  sciences  which  were  be- 
lieved in  by  thousands  during  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth 
centuries. 

The  reverence  for  classic  antiquity,  you  must  un- 
derstand, which  sprang  up  at  the  renaissance  in  the 
fifteenth  century,  was  as  indiscriminating  as  it  was 
earnest.  Men  caught  the  trash  as  well  as  the  jewels. 
They  put  the  dreams  of  the  Neoplatonists,  lam- 
blicus,  Porphyry,  or  Plotinus,  or  Proclus,  on  the  same 
level  as  the  sound  dialectic  philosophy  of  Plato  him- 
self. And  these  Neoplatonists  were  all,  more  or  less, 
believers  in  magic — Theurgy,  as  it  was  called — in 
the  power  of  charms  and  spells,  in  the  occult  virtues 
of  herbs  and  gems,  in  the  power  of  adepts  to  evoke 
and  command  spirits,  in  the  significance  of  dreams, 
in  the  influence  of  the  stars  upon  men^s  characters 
and  destinies.  If  the  great  and  wise  philosopher  lam- 
blicus  believed  such  things,  why  might  not  the  men 
of  the  sixteenth  century? 

And  so  grew  up  again  in  Europe  a  passion  for  what 
were  called  the  Occult  sciences.  It  had  always  been 
haunting  the  European  imagination.  Mediaeval  monks 
had  long  ago  transformed  the  poet  Virgil  into  a  great 
necromancer.  And  there  were  immense  excuses  for 
such  a  belief.  There  was  a  mass  of  collateral  evidence 
that  the  occult  sciences  were  true,  which  it  was  im- 
possible then  to  resist.  Races  far  more  ancient,  learned, 
civilised,  than  any  Frenchman,  German,  Englishman, 
or  even  Italian,  in  the  fifteenth  century  had  believed 
in  these  things.  The  Moors,  the  best  physicians  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  had  their  heads  full,  as  the  ^^  Arabian 
Nights  '^  prove,  of  enchanters,  genii,  peris,  and  what 


366  PARACELSUS. 

not  ?  The  Jewish  rabbis  had  their  Cabala,  which  sprang 
up  in  Alexandria,  a  system  of  philosophy  founded  on 
the  mystic  meaning  of  the  words  and  the  actual  letters 
of  the  text  of  Scripture,  which  some  said  was  given  by 
the  angel  Ragiel  to  Adam  in  Paradise,  by  which  Adam 
talked  with  angels,  the  sun  and  moon,  summoned 
spirits,  interpreted  dreams,  healed  and  destroyed ;  and 
by  that  book  of  Eagiel,  as  it  was  called,  Solomon 
became  the  great  magician  and  master  of  all  the  spirits 
and  their  hoarded  treasures. 

So  strong,  indeed,  was  the  belief  in  the  mysteries  of 
the  Cabala,  that  Eeuchlin,the  restorer  of  Hebrew  learn- 
ing in  Germany,  and  Pico  di  Mirandola,  the  greatest 
of  Italian  savants,  accepted  them;  and  not  only  Pope 
Leo  X.  himself,  but  even  statesmen  and  warriors  re- 
ceived with  delight  Eeuchlin^s  cabalistic  treatise,  ^'  De 
Verbo  Miriiico,^^  on  the  mystic  word  ^^  Schemham- 
phorash^^ — that  hidden  name  of  God,  which  whosoever 
can  pronounce  aright  is,  for  the  moment,  lord  of 
nature  and  of  all  daemons. 

Amulets,  too,  and  talismans;  the  faith  in  them  was 
exceeding  ancient.  Solomon  had  his  seal,  by  which  he 
commanded  all  daemons  ;  and  there  is  a  whole  literature 
of  curious  nonsense,  which  you  may  read  if  you  will, 
about  the  Abraxas  and  other  talismans  of  the  Gnostics 
in  Syria  ;  and  another,  of  the  secret  virtues  which  were 
supposed  to  reside  in  gems :  especially  in  the  old  Roman 
and  Greek  gems,  carved  into  intaglios  with  figures  of 
heathen  gods  and  goddesses.  Lapidaria,  or  lists  of 
these  gems  and  their  magical  virtues,  were  not  un- 
common in  the  Middle  Ages.  You  may  read  a  great 
deal  that  is  interesting  about  them  at  the  end  of 
Mr.  King^s  book  on  gems. 

Astrology  too;  though  Pico  di  Mirandola  might 


PARACELSUS.  367 

set  himself  against  the  rest  of  the  world,  few  were  found 
daring  enough  to  deny  so  ancient  a  science.  Luther 
and  Melancthon  merely  followed  the  regular  tradition  of 
public  opinion  when  they  admitted  its  truth.  It  sprang 
probably  from  the  worship  of  the  Seven  Planets  by 
the  old  Ohaldees.  It  was  brought  back  from  Babylon 
by  the  Jews  after  the  Captivity _,  and  spread  over  all 
Europe — perhaps  all  Asia  likewise. 

The  rich  and  mighty  of  the  earth  must  needs  have 
their  nativities  cast,  and  consult  the  stars ;  and  Cor- 
nelius Agrippa  gave  mortal  offence  to  the  Queen- 
Dowager  of  France  (mother  of  Francis  I.)  because, 
when  she  compelled  him  to  consult  the  stars  about 
Francis's  chance  of  getting  out  of  his  captivity  in 
Spain  after  the  battle  of  Pavia,  he  wrote  and  spoke 
his  mind  honestly  about  such  nonsense. 

Even  Newton  seems  to  have  hankered  after  it 
when  young.  Among  his  MSS.  in  Lord  Portsmouth's 
library  at  Hurstbourne  are  whole  folios  of  astrologic 
calculations.  It  went  on  till  the  end  of  the  seven- 
teenth century,  and  died  out  only  when  men  had 
begun  to  test  it,  and  all  other  occult  sciences,  by 
experience,  and  induction  founded  thereon. 

Countless  students  busied  themselves  over  the 
transmutation  of  metals.  As  for  magic,  necromancy, 
pyromancy,  geomancy,  coscinomancy,  and  all  the  other 
mancies — there  was  then  a  whole  literature  about 
them.  And  the  witch-burning  inquisitors  like  Sprenger, 
Bodin,  Delrio,  and  the  rest,  believed  as  firmly  in 
the  magic  powers  of  the  poor  wretches  whom  they 
tortured  to  death,  as  did,  in  many  cases,  the  poor 
wretches  themselves. 

Everyone,  almost,  believed  in  magic.  Take  two 
cases.     Eead  the  story  which  Benvenuto  Cellini,  the 


36S  PARACELSUS. 

sculptor,  tells  in  his  life  (everyone  should  read  it)  of 
the  magician  whom  he  consults  in  the  Coliseum  at 
Rome,  and  the  figure  which  he  sees  as  he  walks 
back  with  the  magician,  jumping  from  roof  to  roof 
along  the  tiles  of  the  houses. 

And  listen  to  this  story,  which  Mr.  Froude  has 
dug  up  in  his  researches.  A  Church  commissioner  at 
Oxford,  at  the  beginning  of  the  Reformation,  being 
unable  to  track  an  escaped  heretic,  ^^  caused  a  figure  to 
be  made  by  an  expert  in  astronomy;'^  by  which  it  was 
discovered  that  the  poor  wretch  had  fled  in  a  tawny 
coat  and  was  making  for  the  sea.  Conceive  the 
respected  head  of  your  College — or  whoever  he  may 
be — in  case  you  slept  out  all  night  without  leave, 
going  to  a  witch  to  discover  whether  you  had  gone  to 
London  or  to  Huntingdon,  and  then  writing  solemnly 
to  inform  the  Bishop  of  Ely  of  his  meritorious 
exertions  ! 

In  such  a  mad  world  as  this  was  Paracelsus  born. 
The  son  of  a  Swiss  physician,  but  of  noble  blood,  Philip 
Aureolus  Theophrastus  was  his  Christian  name.  Bom- 
bast von  Hohenheim  his  surname,  which  last  word  he 
turned,  after  the  fashion  of  the  times,  into  Paracelsus, 
Born  in  1493  at  Einsiedeln  (the  hermitage),  in  Schweiz, 
which  is  still  a  famous  place  of  pilgrimage,  he  was 
often  called  Eremita — the  hermit.  Erasmus,  in  a  letter 
still  extant,  but  suspected  not  to  be  genuine,  addressed 
him  by  that  name. 

How  he  passed  the  first  thirty-three  years  of  his 
life'  it  is  hard  to  say.  He  used  to  boast  that  he  had 
wandered  over  all  Europe,  been  in  Sweden,  Italy, 
in  Constantinople,  and  perhaps  in  the  far  East,  with 
barber  -  surgeons,  alchemists,  magicians,  haunting 
mines,  and  forges  of  Sweden  and  Bohemia^  especially 


PAEACELSUS.  369 

those  which  the  rich  merchants  of  that  day  had  in 
the  Tyrol. 

It  was  from  that  work,  he  said,  that  he  learnt  what 
he  knew  :  from  the  study  of  nature  and  of  facts.  He 
had  heard  all  the  learned  doctors  and  professors ;  he 
had  read  all  their  books,  and  they  could  teach  him 
nothing.  Medicine  was  his  monarch,  and  no  one  else. 
He  declared  that  there  was  more  wisdom  under  his 
bald  pate  than  in  Aristotle  and  Galen,  Hippocrates  and 
Ehasis.  And  fact  seemed  to  be  on  his  side.  He  re- 
appeared in  Germany  about  1525,  and  began  working 
wondrous  cures.  He  had  brought  back  with  him  from 
the  East  an  arcanum,  a  secret  remedy,  and  laudanum 
was  its  name.  He  boasted,  says  one  of  his  enemies, 
that  he  could  raise  the  dead  to  life  with  it ;  and  so  the 
event  all  but  proved.  Basle  was  then  the  university 
where  free  thought  and  free  creeds  found  their  safest 
home  ;  and  hither  CEcolampadius  the  reformer  invited 
young  Paracelsus  to  lecture  on  medicine  and  natural 
science. 

It  would  have  been  well  for  him,  perhaps,  had  he 
never  opened  his  lips.  He  might  have  done  good 
enough  to  his  fellow- creatures  by  his  own  undoubted 
powers  of  healing.  He  cured  John  Frobenius,  the 
printer,  Erasmuses  friend,  at  Basle,  when  the  doctors 
were  going  to  cut  his  leg  off.  His  fame  spread  far 
and  wide.  Round  Basle  and  away  into  Alsace 
he  was  looked  on,  even  an  enemy  says,  as  a  new 
^sculapius. 

But  these  were  days  in  which  in  a  university  every- 
one was  expected  to  talk  and  teach,  and  so  Paracelsus 
began  lecturing ;  and  then  the  weakness  which  was 
mingled  with  his  strength  showed  itself.  He  began  by 
burning  openly  the  books  of  Galen  and  Avicenna,  and 
VOL.  I. — H.  E.  2  b 


370  PARACELSUS. 

declared  that  all  tlie  old  knowledge  was  useless. 
Doctors  and  students  alike  must  begin  over  again 
witli  him.  The  dons  were  horrified.  To  burn  Galen 
and  Avicenna  was  as  bad  as  burning  the  Bible. 
And  more  horrified  still  were  they  when  Paracelsus 
began  lecturing^  not  in  the  time-honoured  dog-Latin, 
but  in  good  racy  German,  which  everyone  could 
understand.  They  shuddered  under  their  red  gowns 
and  hats.  If  science  was  to  be  taught  in  German, 
farewell  to  the  Galenists^  formulas,  and  their  lucra- 
tive monopoly  of  learning.  Paracelsus  was  bold 
enough  to  say  that  he  wished  to  break  up  their 
monopoly;  to  spread  a  popular  knowledge  of  medi- 
cine. '^  How  much/^  he  wrote  once,  "  would  I 
endure  and  suffer,  to  see  every  man  his  own  shepherd 
— his  own  healer.^^  He  laughed  to  scorn  their  long 
prescriptions,  used  the  simplest  drugs,  and  declared 
Nature,  after  all,  to  be  the  best  physician  —  as 
a  dog,  he  says^  licks  his  wound  well  again  without 
our  help ;  or  as  the  broken  rib  of  the  ox  heals  of  its 
own  accord. 

Such  a  man  was  not  to  be  endured.  They  hated 
him,  he  says^  for  the  same  reason  that  they  hated  Luther,, 
for  the  same  reason  that  the  Pharisees  hated  Christ- 
He  met  their  attacks  with  scorn,  rage,  and  language  as 
coarse  and  violent  as  their  own.  The  coarseness  and 
violence  of  those  days  seem  incredible  to  us  now; 
and,  indeed,  Paracelsus,  as  he  confessed  himself,  was, 
though  of  gentle  blood,  rough  and  unpolished;  and 
utterly,  as  one  can  see  from  his  writings,  unable  to 
give  and  take,  to  conciliate — perhaps  to  pardon.  He 
looked  impatiently  on  these  men  who  were  (not  un- 
reasonably) opposing  novelties  which  they  could  not 
understand,  as  enemies   of   God,   who  were   balking; 


PAEACELSUS.  371 

Mm  in  his  grand  plan  for  regenerating  science  and 
alleviating  the  woes  of  humanity^  and  he  outraged 
their  prejudices  instead  of  soothing  them. 

Soon  they  had  their  revenge.  Ugly  stories  were 
whispered  about.  Oporinus,  the  printer^  who  had 
lived  with  him  for  two  years^  and  who  left  him,  it  is 
said,  because  he  thought  Paracelsus  concealed  from 
him  unfairly  the  secret  of  making  laudanum,  told  how 
Paracelsus  was  neither  more  nor  less  than  a  sot,  who 
came  drunk  to  his  lectures,  used  to  prime  himself  with 
wine  before  going  to  his  patients,  and  sat  all  night  in 
pothouses  swilling  with  the  boors. 

Men  looked  coldly  on  him — longed  to  be  rid  of 
him.  And  they  soon  found  an  opportunity.  He  took 
in  hand  some  Canon  of  the  city  from  whom  it  was 
settled  beforehand  that  he  was  to  receive  a  hundred 
florins.  The  priest  found  himself  cured  so  suddenly  and 
easily  that,  by  a  strange  logic,  he  refused  to  pay  the 
money,  and  went  to  the  magistrates.  They  supported 
him,  and  compelled  Paracelsus  to  take  sixflorins  instead 
of  the  hundred.  He  spoke  his  mind  fiercely  to  them. 
I  believe,  according  to  one  story,  he  drew  his  long 
sword  on  the  Canon.  His  best  friends  told  him  he  must 
leave  the  place;  and  within  two  years,  seemingly, 
after  his  first  triumph  at  Basle,  he  fled  from  it  a 
wanderer  and  a  beggar. 

The  rest  of  his  life  is  a  blank.  He  is  said  to 
have  recommenced  his  old  wanderings  about  Europe, 
studying  the  diseases  of  every  country,  and  writing  his 
books,  which  were  none  of  them  published  till  after 
his  death.  His  enemies  joyfully  trampled  on  the 
fallen  man.  He  was  a  "dull  rustic,  a  monster,  an 
atheist,  a  quack,  a  maker  of  gold,  a  magician."'^  When 
he  was  drunk,  one  Wetter,  his  servant,  told  Erastus 

2  B  2 


372  PAEACELSUS. 

(one  of  his  enemies)  tliat  he  used  to  offer  to  call  up 
legions  of  devils  to  prove  his  skill,  while  Wetter,  in 
abject  terror  of  his  spells,  entreated  him  to  leave  the 
fiends  alone — that  he  had  sent  his  book  by  a  fiend  to  the 
spirit  of  Galen  in  hell,  and  challenged  him  to  say  which 
was  the  better  system,  his  or  Paracelsus^  and  what  not  ? 

His  books  were  forbidden  to  be  printed.  He  him- 
self was  refused  a  hearing,  and  it  was  not  till  after  ten 
years  of  wandering  that  he  found  rest  and  protection 
in  a  little  village  of  Carinthia. 

Three  years  afterwards  he  died  in  the  hospital  of 
St.  Sebastian  at  Salzburg,  in  the  Tyrol.  His  death  was 
the  signal  for  empirics  j^nd  visionaries  to  foist  on  the 
public  book  after  book  on  occult  philosophy,  written  in 
his  name — of  which  you  may  see  ten  folios — not  more 
than  a  quarter,  I  believe,  genuine.  And  these  foolish 
books,  as  much  as  anything,  have  helped  to  keep  up 
the  popular  prejudice  against  one  who,  in  spite  of  all 
his  faults  was  a  true  pioneer  of  science.*  I  believe 
(with  those  moderns  who  have  tried  to  do  him  justice) 
that  under  all  his  verbiage  and  confusion  there  was  a 
vein  of  sound  scientific,  experimental  common  sense. 

When  he  talks  of  astronomy  as  necessary  to  be 
known  by  a  physician,  it  seems  to  me  that  he  laughs 
at  astrology,  properly  so  called ;  that  is,  that  the  stars 
influence  the  character  and  destiny  of  man.  Mars,  he 
says,  did  ,not  make   Nero  cruel.     There  would  have 

^  For  a  true  estimate  of  Paracelsus  you  must  read  "  Fiir  Philippus 
Aureolus  Theophrastus  von  Hohenlieim,"  by  that  great  German  phy- 
sician and  savant,  Professor  Marx,  of  Gottingen;  also  a  valuable 
article  founded  on  Dr.  Marx's  views  in  the  "  Nouveau  Biographie 
Universelle  ; "  and  also — which  is  within  the  reach  of  all — Professor 
Maurice's  article  on  Paracelsus  in  Vol.  II.  of  his  history  of  "  Moral 
and  Metaphysical  Philosophy."  But  the  best  key  to  Paracelsus  is  to 
be  found  in  his  own  works. 


PARACELSUS.  373 

been  long-lived  men  in  the  world  if  Saturn  liad  never 
ascended  tlie  skies;  and  Helen  would  liave  been  a 
wanton^  tbough  Venus  had  never  been  created.  But 
he  does  believe  that  the  heavenly  bodies^  and  the  whole 
shies^  have  a  physical  influence  on  climate,  and  on  the 
health  of  men. 

He  talks  of  alchemy,  but  he  means  by  it,  I  think^ 
only  that  sound  science  which  we  call  chemistry,  and 
at  which  he  worked,  wandering,  he  says,  among  mines 
and  forges,  as  a  practical  metallurgist. 

He  tells  us — what  sounds  startling  enough — that 
magic  is  the  only  preceptor  which  can  teach  the  art 
of  healing ;  but  he  means,  it  seems  to  me,  only  an 
understanding  of  the  invisible  processes  of  nature,  in 
which  sense  an  electrician  or  a  biologist,  a  Faraday  or 
a  Darwin,  would  be  a  magician ;  and  when  he  compares 
medical  magic  to  the  Cabalistic  science,  of  which  I 
spoke  just  now  (and  in  which  he  seems  to  have 
believed),  he  only  means,  I  think,  that  as  the  Cabala 
discovers  hidden  meaning  and  virtues  in  the  text  of 
Scripture,  so  ought  the  man  of  science  to  find  them  in 
the  book  of  nature.  But  this  kind  of  talk,  wrapt  up 
too  in  the  most  confused  style,  or  rather  no  style  at  all, 
is  quite  enough  to  account  for  ignorant  and  envious 
people  accusing  him  of  magic,  saying  that  he  had 
discovered  the  philosopher's  stone,  and  the  secret  of 
Hermes  Trismegistus ;  that  he  must  make  gold, because^ 
though  he  squandered  all  his  money,  he  had  always 
money  in  hand ;  and  that  he  kept  a  *^  deviFs-bird,^^  a 
familiar  spirit,  in  the  pommel  of  that  famous  long 
sword  of  his,  which  he  was  only  too  ready  to  lug  out 
on  provocation — the  said  spirit,  Agoth  by  name, 
being  probably  only  the  laudanum  bottle  with  which 
he  worked  so  many  wondrous  cures,  and  of  which, 


374  PAEACELSUS. 

to  judge  from  Ms  writings,  lie  took  only  too  freely 
himself. 

But  the  cliarm  of  Paracelsus  is  in  Ms  humour, 
Ms  mother-wit.  He  was  blamed  for  consorting  with 
boors  in  pot-houses  ;  blamed  for  writing  in  racy 
German^,  instead  of  bad  school-Latin :  but  you  can 
hardly  read  a  chapter,  either  of  his  German  or  his  dog- 
Latin,  without  finding  many  a  good  thing — witty  and 
weighty,  though  often  not  a  little  coarse.  He  talks 
in  parables.  He  draws  illustrations,  like  Socrates  of 
old,  from  the  commonest  and  the  oddest  matters  to 
enforce  the  weightiest  truths.  ^^  Fortune  and  misfor- 
tune^^^  he  says,  for  instance  nobly  enough,  ^^  are  not  like 
snow  and  wind,  they  must  be  deduced  and  known  from 
the  secrets  of  nature.  Therefore  misfortune  is  igno- 
rance, fortune  is  knowledge.  The  man  who  walks  out 
in  the  rain  is  not  unfortunate  if  he  gets  a  ducking. 

'^  Nature,^ ^  he  says  again,  ''  makes  the  text,  and  the 
medical  man  adds  the  gloss ;  but  the  two  fit  each  other 
no  better  than  a  dog  does  a  bath ;  and  again,  when  he 
is  arguing  against  the  doctors  who  hated  chemistry — 
^^  Who  hates  a  thing  which  has  hurt  nobody  ?  Will 
you  complain  of  a  dog  for  biting  you,  if  you  lay 
hold  of  his  tail  ?  Does  the  emperor  send  the  thief  to 
the  gallows,  or  the  thing  which  he  has  stolen  ?  The 
thief,  I  think.  Therefore  science  should  not  be 
despised  on  account  of  some  who  know  nothing  about 
it.^^  You  will  say  the  reasoning  is  not  very  clear,  and 
indeed  the  passage,  like  too  many  more,  smacks 
strongly  of  wine  and  laudanum.  But  such  is  his  quaint 
racy  style.  As  humorous  a  man,  it  seems  to  me,  as 
you  shall  meet  with  for  many  a  day ;  and  where  there 
is  humour  there  is  pretty  sure  to  be  imagination, 
tenderness,  and  depth  of  heart. 


PAEACELSUS.  376 

As  for  his  notions  of  wliat  a  man  of  science  should 
Tdc,  the  servant  of  God,  and  of  Nature — whicli  is  the 
ivork  of  God — using  his  powers  not  for  money,  not 
for  ambition,  but  in  love  and  charity,  as  he  says,  for 
t,he  good  of  his  fellow-man — on  that  matter  Paracelsus 
is  always  noble.  All  that  Mr.  Browning  has  conceived 
on  that  point,  all  the  noble  speeches  which  he  has  put 
into  Paracelsus^s  mouth,  are  true  to  his  writings.  How 
can  they  be  otherwise,  if  Mr.  Browning  set  them  forth 
— a  genius  as  accurate  and  penetrating  as  he  is  wise 
and  pure  ? 

But  was  Paracelsus  a  drunkard  after  all  ? 

Gentlemen,  what  concern  is  that  of  yours  or  mine  ? 
I  have  gone  into  the  question,  as  Mr.  Browning  did, 
cannot  say,  and  don^t  care  to  say. 

Oporinus,  who  slandered  him  so  cruelly,  recanted 
when  Paracelsus  was  dead,  and  sang  his  praises — too 
late.  But  I  do  not  read  that  he  recanted  the  charge  of 
drunkenness.  His  defenders  allow  it,  only  saying 
that  it  was  the  fault  not  of  him  alone,  but  of  all 
Germans.  But  if  so,  why  was  he  specially  blamed 
for  what  certainly  others  did  likewise  ?  I  cannot 
bat  fear  from  his  writings,  as  well  as  from  common 
report,  that  there  was  something  wrong  with  the 
man.  I  say  only  something.  Against  his  purity 
there  never  was  a  breath  of  suspicion.  He  was  said 
to  care  nothing  for  women;  and  even  that  was 
made  the  subject  of  brutal  jests  and  lies.  But  it  may 
have  been  that,  worn  out  with  toil  and  poverty,  he 
found  comfort  in  that  laudanum  which  he  believed  to 
be  the  arcanum — the  very  elixir  of  life ;  that  he  got 
more  and  more  into  the  habit  of  exciting  his  imagina- 
tion with  the  narcotic,  and  then,  it  may  be,  when  the 
fit   of  depression  followed,  he  strung  his  nerves  up 


B76  PARACELSUS. 

again  by  wine.  It  may  have  been  so.  We  have  liad^ 
in  tlie  last  generation^  an  exactly  similar  case  in  a 
philosopher,  now  I  trust  in  heaven,  and  to  whose 
genius  I  owe  too  much  to  mention  his  name  here. 

But  that  Paracelsus  w^as  a  sot  I  cannot  believe. 
That  face  of  his,  as  painted  by  the  great  Tintoretto,  is 
not  the  face  of  a  drunkard,  quack,  bully,  but  of  such 
a  man  as  Browning  has  conceived.  The  great  globular 
brain,  the  sharp  delicate  chin,  is  not  that  of  a  sot.  Nor 
are  those  eyes,  which  gleam  out  from  under  the  deep 
compressed  brow,  wild,  intense,  hungry,  homeless^ 
defiant,  and  yet  complaining,  the  eyes  of  a  sot — but 
rather  the  eyes  of  a  man  who  struggles  to  tell  a  great 
secret,  and  cannot  find  words  for  it,  and  yet  wonders 
why  men  cannot  understand,  will  not  believe  what 
seems  to  him  as  clear  as  day — a  tragical  face,  as  you 
well  can  see. 

God  keep  us  all  from  making  our  lives  a  tragedy 
by  one  great  sin.  And  now  let  us  end  this  sad  story 
with  the  last  words  which  Mr.  Browning  puts  into  the 
mouth  of  Paracelsus,  dying  in  the  hospital  at  Salzburg, 
which  have  come  literally  true  : 

Meanwhile,  I  have  done  well  though  not  all  well. 
As  yet  men  cannot  do  without  contempt ; 
'Tis  for  their  good  ;  and  therefore  fit  awhile 
That  they  reject  the  weak  and  scorn  the  false, 
Eather  than  praise  the  strong  and  true  in  me  : 
But  after,  they  will  know  me.     If  I  stoop 
Into  a  dark  tremendous  sea  of  cloud, 
It  is  but  for  a  time.     I  press  God's  lamp 
Close  to  my  breast ;  its  splendour,  soon  or  late, 
"Will  pierce  the  gloom.     I  shall  emerge  one  dsij. 


GEOEGE  BUCHANAN,  SCHOLAE. 


GEORGE  BUCHAMN,  SCHOLAR. 


The  scholar^  in  the  sixteenth,  century,  was  a  far  more 
important  personage  than  now.  The  supply  of  learned 
men  was  very  small,  the  demand  for  them  very  great. 
During  the  whole  of  the  fifteenth,  and  a  great  part  of 
the  sixteenth  century,  the  human  mind  turned  more 
and  more  from  the  scholastic  philosophy  of  the  Middle 
Ages  to  that  of  the  Romans  and  the  Greeks ;  and  found 
more  and  more  in  old  Pagan  Art  an  element  which 
Monastic  Art  had  not,  and  which  was  yet  necessary  for 
the  full  satisfaction  of  their  craving  after  the  Beautiful. 
At  such  a  crisis  of  thought  and  taste,  it  was  natural 
that  the  classical  scholar,  the  man  who  knew  old  Rome, 
and  still  more  old  Greece,  should  usurp  the  place  of 
the  monk,  as  teacher  of  mankind;  and  that  scholars 
should  form,  for  awhile^  a  new  and  powerful  aristocracy, 
limited  and  privileged,  and  all  the  more  redoubtable, 
because  its  power  lay  in  intellect,  and  had  been  won  by 
intellect  alone. 

Those  who,  whether  poor  or  rich,  did  not  fear  the 
monk  and  priest,  at  least  feared  the  "scholar,^^  who  held, 
so  the  vulgar  believed,  the  keys  of  that  magic  lore  by 
which  the  old  necromancers  had  built  cities  like  Rome, 


'380  GEOEGE   BUCHANAN,  SCHOLAE, 

and  worked  marvels  of  meclianical  and  chemical  skilly 
wkicli  tlie  degenerate  modern  could  never  equal. 

If  the  ^^ scholar^'  stopped  in  a  town^  his  hostess 
probably  begged  of  him  a  charm  against  toothache  or 
rheumatism.  The  penniless  knight  discoursed  with 
him  on  alchemy^  and  the  chances  of  retrieving  his  for- 
tune by  the  art  of  transmuting  metals  into  gold.  The 
queen  or  bishop  worried  him  in  private  about  casting 
their  nativities^  and  finding  their  fates  among  the  stars. 
But  the  statesman,  who  dealt  wdth  more  practical 
matters,  hired  him  as  an  advocate  and  rhetorician,  who 
could  fight  his  master^s  enemies  with  the  weapons  of 
Demosthenes  and  Cicero.  Wherever  the  scholar^s  steps 
were  turned,  he  might  be  master  of  others,  as  long  as 
he  was  master  of  himself.  The  complaints  which  he 
so  often  uttered  concerning  the  cruelty  of  fortune,  the 
fickleness  of  princes  and  so  forth,  were  probably  no 
more  just  then  than  such  complaints  are  now.  Then, 
as  now,  he  got  his  deserts ;  and  the  world  bought  him 
at  his  own  price.  If  he  chose  to  sell  himself  to  this 
patron  and  to  that,  he  was  used  and  thrown  away  :  if 
he  chose  to  remain  in  honourable  independence,  he  was 
courted  and  feared. 

Among  the  successful  scholars  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  none  surely  is  more  notable  than  George 
Buchanan.  The  poor  Scotch  widow^s  son,  by  force  of 
native  wit,  and,  as  I  think,  by  force  of  native  worth, 
fights  his  way  upward,  through  poverty  and  severest 
persecution,  to  become  the  correspondent  and  friend  of 
the  greatest  literary  celebrities  of  the  Continent,  com- 
parable, in  their  opinion,  to  the  best  Latin  poets  of 
antiquity ;  the  preceptor  of  princes  ;  the  counsellor  and 
spokesman  of  Scotch  statesmen  in  the  most  dangerous 
of  times;  and  leaves  behind  him  political  treatises^ 


GEORGE   BUCHANATT,  SCHOLAR.  381 

wliicli  have  influenced  not  only  the  history  of  his  own 
country,  but  that  of  the  civiHsed  world. 

Such  a  success  could  not  be  attained  without  makino- 
enemies,  perhaps  without  making  mistakes.  But  the 
more  we  study  George  Buchanan^s  history,  the  less  we 
shall  be  inclined  to  hunt  out  his  failings,  the  more 
inclined  to  admire  his  worth.  A  shrewd,  sound-hearted, 
affectionate  man,  with  a  strong  love  of  right  and  scorn 
of  wrong,  and  a  humour  withal  which  saved  him — 
except  on  really  great  occasions — from  bitterness,  and 
helped  him  to  laugh  where  narrower  natures  would 
have  only  snarled, — he  is,  in  many  respects,  a  type  of 
those  Lowland  Scots,  who  long  preserved  his  jokes, 
genuine  or  reputed,  as  a  common  household  book.* 
A  schoolmaster  by  profession,  and  struggling  for  long 
years  amid  the  temptations  which,  in  those  days, 
degraded  his  class  into  cruel  and  sordid  pedants,  he  rose 
from  the  mere  pedagogue  to  be,  in  the  best  sense  of  the 
word,  a  courtier :  ^^  One,^^  says  Daniel  Heinsius,  ^^  who 
seemed  not  only  born  for  a  court,  but  born  to  amend 
it.  He  brought  to  his  queen  that  at  which  she  could 
not  wonder  enough.  For,  by  affecting  a  certain  liberty 
in  censuring  morals,  he  avoided  all  offence,  under 
the  cloak  of  simplicity.''^  Of  him  and  his  compeers, 
Turnebus,  and  Muretus,  and  their  friend  Andrea  Govea, 
Eonsard,  the  French  court  poet,  said  that  they  had 
nothing  of  the  pedagogue  about  them  but  the  gown 
.and  cap.  ^^  Austere  in  face,  and  rustic  in  his  looks,^^ 
says  David  Buchanan,  ^^  but  most  polished  in  style  and 
speech ;  and  continually,  even  in  serious  conversation, 

^  So  says  Dr.  Irving,  writing  in  1817.  I  have,  however,  tried  in 
vain  to  get  a  sight  of  this  book.  I  need  not  tell  Scotch  scholars  how 
much  I  am  indebted  throughout  this  article  to  Mr.  David  Irving's 
^erudite  second  edition  of  Buchanan's  Life. 


382         GEOEGE  BUCHANAN,  SCHOLAR. 

jesting  most  wittily/^  ^^  Rougli-liewn^  slovenly,  and 
rude/^  says  Peacham,  in  his  ^^  Compleat  Gentleman/^ 
speaking  of  Mm,  probably,  as  he  appeared  in  old  age, 
'^  in  his  person,  behaviour,  and  fashion ;  seldom  caring 
for  a  better  outside  than  a  rugge-gown  girt  close  about 
him :  yet  his  inside  and  conceipt  in  poesie  was  most 
rich,  and  his  sweetness  and  facilitie  in  verse  most 
excellent.''^  A  typical  Lowland  Scot,  as  I  said  just 
now,  he  seems  to  have  absorbed  all  the  best  culture 
which  Prance  could  afford  him,  without  losing  the 
strength,  honesty,  and  humour  which  he  inherited 
from  his  Stirlingshire  kindred. 

The  story  of  his  life  is  easily  traced.  When  an  old 
man,  he  himself  wrote  down  the  main  events  of  it,  at 
the  request  of  his  friends ;  and  his  sketch  has  been 
filled  out  by  commentators,  if  not  always  favourable,  at 
least  erudite.  Born  in  1506,  at  the  Moss,  in  Killearn 
— where  an  obelisk  to  his  memory,  so  one  reads,  has 
been  erected  in  this  century — of  a  family  '^  rather 
ancient  than  rich,^^  his  father  dead  in  the  prime  of 
manhood,  his  grandfather  a  spendthrift,  he  and  his 
seven  brothers  and  sisters  were  brought  up  by  a 
widowed  mother,  Agnes  Heriot — of  whom  one  wishes 
to  know  more  ;  for  the  rule  that  great  sons  have  great 
mothers  probably  holds  good  in  her  case.  George  gave 
signs,  while  at  the  village  school,  of  future  scholarship ; 
and  when  he  was  only  fourteen,  his  uncle  James  sent 
him  to  the  University  of  Paris.  Those  were  hard 
times ;  and  the  youths,  or  rather  boys,  who  meant  to 
become  scholars,  had  a  cruel  life  of  it,  cast  desperately 
out  on  the  wide  world  to  beg  and  starve,  either  into 
self-restraint  and  success,  or  into  ruin  of  body  and 
soul.  And  a  cruel  life  George  had.  Within  two  years 
he  was  down  in  a  severe  illness^  his  uncle  dead,  his 


GEORGE  BUCHANAN,  SCHOLAR.  S83 

supplies  stopped ;  and  tlie  boy  of  sixteen  got  home^  he 
does  not  tell  liow.  Then  lie  tried  soldiering ;  and  was 
with.  Albany's  French  Auxiliaries  at  the  ineffectual 
attack  on  Wark  Castle.  Marching  back  through  deep 
snow,  he  got  a  fresh  illness,  which  kept  him  in  bed 
all  winter.  Then  he  and  his  brother  were  sent  to 
St.  Andrew's,  where  he  got  his  B.A.  at  nineteen.  The 
next  summer  he  went  to  Prance  once  more;  and 
''  fell,''  he  says,  '^  into  the  flames  of  the  Lutheran  sect, 
which  was  then  spreading  far  and  wide."  Two  years 
of  penury  followed ;  and  then  three  years  of  school- 
mastering  in  the  College  of  St.  Barbe,  which  he  has 
immortalised— at  least,  for  the  few  who  care  to  read 
modern  Latin  poetry — in  his  elegy  on  ^^  The  Miseries 
of  a  Parisian  Teacher  of  the  Humanities."  The 
wretched  regent-master,  pale  and  suffering,  sits  up 
all  night  preparing  his  lecture,  biting  his  nails  and 
thumping  his  desk ;  and  falls  asleep  for  a  few  minutes, 
to  start  up  at  the  sound  of  the  four- o'clock  bell,  and  be 
in  school  by  five,  his  Virgil  in  one  hand,  and  his  rod 
in  the  other,  trying  to  do  work  on  his  own  account  at 
old  manuscripts,  and  bawling  all  the  while  at  his 
wretched  boys,  who  cheat  him,  and  pay  each  other  to 
answer  to  truants'  names.  The  class  is  all  wrong. 
'^  One  is  barefoot,  another's  shoe  is  burst,  another 
cries,  another  writes  home.  Then  comes  the  rod,  the 
sound  of  blows,  and  howls;  and  the  day  passes  in 
tears."  "  Then  mass,  then  another  lesson,  then  more 
blows ;  there  is  hardly  time  to  eat."  I  have  no  space 
to  finish  the  picture  of  the  stupid  misery  which, 
Buchanan  says,  was  ruining  his  intellect^  while  it 
starved  his  body.  However,  happier  days  came. 
Gilbert  Kennedy,  Earl  of  Cassilis,  who  seems  to  have 
been  a  noble  young  gentleman,  took  him  as  his  tutor 


884  GEORGE   BUCHANAN,  SCHOLAR. 

for  the  next  five  years ;  and  with  him  he  went  back 
to  Scotland. 

But  there  his  plain  speaking  got  him,  as  it  did 
more  than  once  afterward,  into  trouble.  He  took  it 
into  his  head  to  write,  in  imitation  of  Dunbar,  a  Latin 
poem,  in  which  St.  Francis  asks  him  in  a  dream  to 
become  a  Gray  Friar,  and  Buchanan  answered  in 
language  which  had  the  unpleasant  fault  of  being  too 
clever,  and — to  judge  from  contemporary  evidence — 
only  too  true.  The  friars  said  nothing  at  first ;  but 
when  King  James  made  Buchanan  tutor  to  one  of  his 
natural  sons,  they,  "  men  professing  meekness,  took 
the  matter  somewhat  more  angrily  than  befitted  men 
so  pious  in  the  opinion  of  the  people. ^^  So  Buchanan 
himself  puts  it  :  but,  to  do  the  poor  friars  justice, 
they  must  have  been  angels,  not  men,  if  they  did  not 
writhe  somewhat  under  the  scourge  which  he  had  laid 
on  them.  To  be  told  that  there  was  hardly  a  place  in 
heaven  for  monks,  was  hard  to  hear  and  bear.  They 
accused  him  to  the  king  of  heresy;  but  not  being 
then  in  favour  with  James,  they  got  no  answer,  and 
Buchanan  was  commanded  to  repeat  the  castigation. 
Having  found  out  that  the  friars  were  not  to  be 
touched  with  impunity,  he  wrote,  he  says,  a  short  and 
ambiguous  poem.  But  the  king,  who  loved  a  joke, 
demanded  something  sharp  and  stinging,  and  Buchanan 
obeyed  by  writing,  but  not  publishing,  "  The  Francis- 
cans,^^ a  long  satire,  compared  to  which  the  "Somnium  " 
was  bland  and  merciful.  The  storm  rose.  Cardinal 
Beaton,  Buchanan  says,  wanted  to  buy  him  of  the 
king,  and  then,  of  course,  burn  him,  as  he  had 
just  burnt  five  poor  souls ;  so,  knowing  Jameses 
avarice,  he  fled  to  England,  through  freebooters  and 
pestilence. 


GEOEGE  BUCHANAN,  SCHOLAR.  ^  ^    U  ^ 

There  he  founds  he  says,  "  meu  oi  obiftiV factions 
being  burned  on  the  same  day  and  in  thrO  sament'e'^V  '/• 
— a  pardonable  exaggeration — '^  by\  Hekiy/y^n.,  in 
his  old  age  more  intent  on  his  own  safety  than  on  fl/^  \  • 
purity  of  religion.  So  to  his  beloved  France  he  went 
again,  to  find  his  enemy  Beaton  ambassador  at  Paris. 
The  capital  was  too  hot  to  hold  him  ;  and  he  fled  south 
to  Bordeaux,  to  Andrea  Govea,  the  Portuguese  prin- 
cipal of  the  College  of  Guienne.  As  Professor  of  Latin 
at  Bordeaux,  we  find  him  presenting  a  Latin  poem 
to  Charles  V.;  and  indulging  that  fancy  of  his  for 
Latin  poetry  which  seems  to  us  nowadays  a  childish 
pedantry,  which  was  then — when  Latin  was  the  ver- 
nacular tongue  of  all  scholars  —  a  serious,  if  not 
altogether  a  useful,  pursuit.  Of  his  tragedies,  so 
famous  in  their  day — the  ^^  Baptist,''^  the  ^^Medea,^^ 
the  ^^  Jephtha,^^  and  the  ^^  Alcestis  ^^— there  is  neither 
space  nor  need  to  speak  here,  save  to  notice  the  bold 
declamations  in  the  '^^  Baptist  ^^  against  tyranny  and 
priestcraft;  and  to  notice  also  that  these  tragedies 
gained  for  the  poor  Scotsman,  in  the  eyes  of  the  best 
scholars  of  Europe^  a  credit  amounting  almost  to  vene- 
ration. When  he  returned  to  Paris,  he  found  occupation 
at  once ;  and,  as  his  Scots  biographers  love  to  record, 
^'  three  of  the  most  learned  men  in  the  world  taught 
humanity  in  the  same  college,"  viz.  Turnebus,  Muretus, 
and  Buchanan. 

Then  followed  a  strange  episode  in  his  life.  A 
university  had  been  founded  at  Coimbra,  in  Portugal, 
and  Andrea  Govea  had  been  invited  to  bring  thither 
what  French  savants  he  could  collect.  Buchanan  went 
to  Portugal  with  his  brother  Patrick,  two  more  Scots- 
men, Dempster  and  Kamsay,  and  a  goodly  company  of 
French  scholars,  whose  names  and  histories  may  be 

VOL.  I. — H.  E.  2   G 


386  GEOEGE   BUCHANAN,  SCHOLAE. 

read  in  the  erudite  pages  of  Dr.  Irving,  went  likewise^ 
All  prospered  in  the  new  Temple  of  the  Muses  for  a 
year  or  so.  Then  its  high-priest^  Govea^  died ;  and, 
by  a  peripeteia  too  common  in  those  days  and  countries,. 
Buchanan  and  two  of  his  friends  migrated  unwillingly 
from  the  Temple  of  the  Muses  for  that  of  Moloch,  and 
found  themselves  in  the  Inquisition. 

Buchanan,  it  seems,  had  said  that  St.  Augustine 
was  more  of  a  Lutheran  than  a  Catholic  on  the  question 
of  the  mass.  He  and  his  friends  had  eaten  flesh  in 
Lent ;  which,  he  says,  almost  everyone  in  Spain  did. 
But  he  was  suspected,  and  with  reason,  as  a  heretic ; 
the  Gray  Friars  formed  but  one  brotherhood  through- 
out Europe ;  and  news  among  them  travelled  surely  if 
not  fast,  so  that  the  story  of  the  satire  written  in 
Scotland  had  reached  Portugal.  The  culprits  were 
imprisoned,  examined,  bullied — but  not  tortured — for 
a  year  and  a  half.  At  the  end  of  that  time,  the  proofs 
of  heresy,  it  seems,  were  insufficient;  but  lest,  says 
Buchanan  with  honest  pride,  ^Hhey  should  get  the 
reputation  of  having  vainly  tormented  a  man  not  alto- 
gether unknown,''^  they  sent  him  for  some  months  to  a 
monastery,  to  be  instructed  by  the  monks.  ^^The 
men,^^  he  says,  ^^were  neither  inhuman  nor  bad,  but 
utterly  ignorant  of  religion  ;  ^^  and  Buchanan  solaced 
himself  during  the  intervals  of  their  instructions,  by 
beginning  his  Latin  translation  of  the  Psalms. 

At  last  he  got  free,  and  begged  leave  to  return 
to  France ;  but  in  vain.  And  so,  wearied  out,  he 
got  on  board  a  Candian  ship  at  Lisbon,  and 
escaped  to  England.  But  England,  he  says,  during 
the  anarchy  of  Edward  VI.''s  reign,  was  not  a  land 
which  suited  him  ;  and  he  returned  to  France,  to  fulfil 
the  hopes  which  he  had  expressed  in  his    charming 


GEORGE   BUCHANAN,  SCHOLAR.  387 

"  Desiderium  Lutitige/^  and  the  still  more  charming, 
because  more  simple,  ^"^Adventus  in  Galliam/^  in  which 
he  bids  farewell,  in  most  melodious  verse,  to  ^^  the 
hungry  moors  of  wretched  Portugal,  and  her  clods 
fertile  in  naught  but  penury/^ 

Some  seven  years  succeeded  of  schoolmastering 
and  verse  -  writing  :  the  Latin  paraphrase  of  the 
Psalms ;  another  of  the  '^  Alcestis  ^^  of  Euripides ; 
an  Epithalamium  on  the  marriage  of  poor  Mary  Stuart, 
noble  and  sincere,  however  fantastic  and  pedantic, 
after  the  manner  of  the  times ;  "Pomps,^"'  too,  for  her 
wedding,  and  for  other  public  ceremonies,  in  which  all 
the  heathen  gods  and  goddesses  figure;  epigrams, 
panegyrics,  satires,  much  of  which  latter  productions 
he  would  have  consigned  to  the  dust-heap  in  his  old 
age,  had  not  his  too  fond  friends  persuaded  him  to 
republish  the  follies  and  coarsenesses  of  his  youth. 
He  was  now  one  of  the  most  famous  scholars  in  Europe, 
and  the  intimate  friend  of  all  the  great  literary  men. 
Was  he  to  go  on  to  the  end,  die,  and  no  more  ?  Was 
he  to  sink  into  the  mere  pedant ;  or,  if  he  could  not 
do  that,  into  the  mere  court  versifier  ? 

The  wars  of  religion  saved  him,  as  they  saved 
many  another  noble  soul,  from  that  degradation.  The 
events  of  1560-62  forced  Buchanan,  as  they  forced 
many  a  learned  man  besides,  to  choose  whether  he 
would  be  a  child  of  light  or  a  child  of  darkness; 
whether  he  would  be  a  dilettante  classicist,  or  a 
preacher — it  might  be  a  martyr — of  the  Gospel. 
Buchanan  may  have  left  France  in  ^^  The  Troubles '' 
merely  to  enjoy  in  his  own  country  elegant  and 
learned  repose.  He  may  have  fancied  that  he  had 
found  it,  when  he  saw  himself,  in  spite  of  his  public 
profession  of  adherence  to  the  Reformed  Kirk,  reading 

2  c  2 


388  GEORGE   BUCHANAN,  SCHOLAE. 

Livy  every  afternoon  with  liis  exquisite  young  sove- 
reign ;  master,  by  her  favour,  of  the  temporalities  of 
Crossraguel  Abbey,  and  by  the  favour  of  Murray, 
Principal  of  St.  Leonard's  College  in  St.  Andrew's. 
Perhaps  he  fancied  at  times  that  ^"^  to-morrow  was  to 
be  as  to-day,  and  much  more  abundant ;'"'  that  thence- 
forth he  might  read  his  folio,  and  write  his  epigram, 
and  joke  his  joke,  as  a  lazy  comfortable  pluralist, 
taking  his  morning  stroll  out  to  the  corner  where  poor 
Wishart  had  been  burned,  above  the  blue  sea  and  the 
yellow  sands,  and  looking  up  to  the  castle  tower  from 
whence  his  enemy  Beaton's  corpse  had  been  hung 
out ;  with  the  comfortable  reflection  that  quieter 
times  had  come,  and  that  whatever  evil  deeds  Arch- 
bishop Hamilton  might  dare,  he  would  not  dare  to 
put  the  Principal  of  St.  Leonard's  into  the  "bottle 
dungeon.'^ 

If  such  hopes  ever  crossed  Geordie's  keen  fancy, 
they  were  disappointed  suddenly  and  fearfully.  The 
fire  which  had  been  kindled  in  France  was  to  reach 
to  Scotland  likewise.  "Eevolutions  are  not  made 
with  rose-water ; "  and  the  time  was  at  hand  when  all 
good  spirits  in  Scotland,  and  George  Buchanan  among 
them,  had  to  choose,  once  and  for  all,  amid  danger, 
confusion,  terror,  whether  they  would  serve  God  or 
Mammon  ;  for  to  serve  both  would  be  soon  impossible. 

"Which  side,  in  that  war  of  light  and  darkness, 
George  Buchanan  took,  is  notorious.  He  saw  then,  as 
others  have  seen  since,  that  the  two  men  in  Scotland 
who  were  capable  of  being  her  captains  in  the  strife 
were  Knox  and  Murray ;  and  to  them  he  gave  in  his 
allegiance  heart  and  soul. 

This  is  the  critical  epoch  in  Buchanan^s  life.  By 
his   conduct  to    Queen  Mary  he  must  stand  or  fall. 


GEORGE   BUCHANAN,  SCHOLAR.  389 

It  is  my  belief  tliat  lie  will  stand.  It  is  not 
my  intention  to  enter  into  the  details  of  a  matter 
so  painful^  so  shocking,  so  prodigious ;  and  now  that 
that  question  is  finally  set  at  rest,  by  the  writings  both 
of  Mr.  Froude  and  Mr.  Burton,  there  is  no  need  to 
allude  to  it  further,  save  where  Buchanan^s  name  is 
concerned.  One  may  now  have  every  sympathy  with 
Mary  Stuart ;  one  may  regard  with  awe  a  figure  so 
stately,  so  tragic,  in  one  sense  so  heroic, — for  she 
reminds  one  rather  of  the  heroine  of  an  old  Greek 
tragedy,  swept  to  her  doom  by  some  irresistible  fate, 
than  of  a  being  of  our  own  flesh  and  blood,  and  of  our 
modern  and  Christian  times.  One  may  sympathise 
with  the  great  womanhood  which  charmed  so  many 
while  she  was  alive ;  which  has  charmed,  in  later  years, 
so  many  noble  spirits  who  have  believed  in  her  inno- 
cence, and  have  doubtless  been  elevated  and  purified 
by  their  devotion  to  one  who  seemed  to  them  an  ideal 
being.  So  far  from  regarding  her  as  a  hateful  per- 
sonage, one  may  feel  oneself  forbidden  to  hate  a 
woman  whom  God  may  have  loved,  and  may  have 
pardoned,  to  judge  from  the  punishment  so  swift,  and 
yet  so  enduring,  which  He  inflicted.  At  least,  he  must 
so  believe  who  holds  that  punishment  is  a  sign  of 
mercy  ;  that  the  most  dreadful  of  all  dooms  is  im- 
punity. Nay,  more,  those  ^^  Casket  ^^  letters  and 
sonnets  may  be  a  relief  to  the  mind  of  one  who 
believes  in  her  guilt  on  other  grounds ;  a  relief  when, 
one  finds  in  them  a  tenderness,  a  sweetness,  a  delicacy, 
a  magnificent  self-sacrifice,  however  hideously  mis- 
placed, which  shows  what  a  womanly  heart  was  there ; 
a  heart  which,  joined  to  that  queenly  brain,  might 
have  made  her  a  blessing  and  a  glory  to  Scotland,  had 
not  the  whole  character  been  warped  and  ruinate  from 


390  GEORGE   BUCHANAN,  SCHOLAR. 

cHldliood^,  by  an  education  so  abominable^  tliat  anyone 
who  knows  what  words  she  must  have  heard,  what 
scenes  she  must  have  beheld  in  France,  from  her  youth 
up,  will  wonder  that  she  sinned  so  little  :  not  that  she 
sinned  so  much.  One  may  feel,  in  a  word,  that  there 
is  every  excuse  for  those  who  have  asserted  Mary^s 
innocence,  because  their  own  high-mindedness  shrank 
from  believing  her  guilty :  but  yet  Buchanan,  in  his 
own  place  and  time,  may  have  felt  as  deeply  that  he 
could  do  no  otherwise  than  he  did. 

The  charges  against  him,  as  all  readers  of  Scotch 
literature  know  well,  may  be  reduced  to  two  heads. 
1st.  The  letters  and  sonnets  were  forgeries.  Maitland 
of  Lethington  may  have  forged  the  letters ;  Buchanan, 
according  to  some,  the  sonnets.  Whoever  forged  them, 
Buchanan  made  use  of  them  in  his  Detection,  knowing 
them  to  be  forged.  2nd.  Whether  Mary  was  innocent 
or  not,  Buchanan  acted  a  base  and  ungrateful  part  in 
putting  himself  in  the  forefront  amongst  her  accusers. 
He  had  been  her  tutor,  her  pensioner.  She  had  heaped 
him  with  favours  ;  and,  after  all,  she  was  his  queen, 
and  a  defenceless  woman  :  and  yet  he  returned  her 
kindness,  in  the  hour  of  her  fall,  by  invectives  fit  only 
for  a  rancorous  and  reckless  advocate,  determined  to 
force  a  verdict  by  the  basest  arts  of  oratory. 

Now  as  to  the  Casket  letters.  I  should  have 
thought  they  bore  in  themselves  the  best  evidence  of 
being  genuine.  I  can  add  nothing  to  the  arguments 
of  Mr.  Froude  and  Mr.  Burton,  save  this  :  that  no  one 
clever  enough  to  be  a  forger  would  have  put  together 
documents  so  incoherent,  and  so  incomplete.  For  the 
evidence  of  guilt  which  they  contain  is,  after  all,  slight 
and  indirect,  and,  moreover,  superfluous  altogether ; 
seeing  that  Mary^s  guilt  was  open  and  palpable,  before 


GEORGE   BUCHANAN,  SCHOLAR.  391 

the  supposed  discovery  of  tlie  letters,  to  every  person 
at  home  and  abroad  who  had  any  knowledge  of  the 
facts.  As  for  the  alleged  inconsistency  of  the  letters 
with  proven  facts  :  the  answer  is,  that  whosoever  wrote 
the  letters  would  be  more  likely  to  know  facts  which 
were  taking  place  around  them  than  any  critic  could 
be  one  hundred  or  three  hundred  years  afterwards. 
But  if  these  mistakes  as  to  facts  actually  exist  in  them, 
they  are  only  a  fresh  argument  for  their  authenticity. 
Mary_,  writing  in  agony  and  confusion,  might  easily 
make  a  mistake :  forgers  would  only  take  too  good 
care  to  make  none. 

But  the  strongest  evidence  in  favour  of  the  letters 
and  sonnets,  in  spite  of  the  arguments  of  good  Dr. 
Whittaker  and  other  apologists  for  Mary,  is  to  be 
found  in  their  tone.  A  forger  in  those  coarse  days 
would  have  made  Mary  write  in  some  Semiramis  or 
Eoxana  vein,  utterly  alien  to  the  tenderness,  the 
•delicacy,  the  pitiful  confusion  of  mind,  the  conscious 
weakness,  the  imploring  and  most  feminine  trust  which 
makes  the  letters,  to  those  who— r-as  I  do — believe  in 
them,  more  pathetic  than  any  fictitious  sorrows  which 
poets  could  invent.  More  than  one  touch,  indeed,  of 
utter  self-abasement,  in  the  second  letter,  is  so  unex- 
pected, so  subtle,  and  yet  so  true  to  the  heart  of  woman, 
that — as  has  been  well  said — if  it  was  invented  there 
must  have  existed  in  Scotland  an  earlier  Shakespeare; 
who  yet  has  died  without  leaving  any  other  sign,  for 
good  or  evil,  of  his  dramatic  genius. 

As  for  the  theory  (totally  unsupported)  that 
Buchanan  forged  the  poem  usually  called  the 
^'  Sonnets ;  ^'  it  is  paying  old  Geordie^s  genius,  how- 
ever versatile  it  may  have  been,  too  high  a  compli- 
ment to  believe  that  he  could  have  written  both  them 


392  GEOEGE   BUCHANAN,  SCHOLAR. 

and  the  Detection ;  while  it  is  paying  his  shrewdness 
too  low  a  compliment  to  believe  that  he  could  have 
put  into  them^,  out  of  mere  carelessness  or  stupidity^ 
the  well-known  line^  which  seems  incompatible  with 
the  theory  both  of  the  letters  and  of  his  own  Detec- 
tion ;  and  which  has  ere  now  been  brought  forward  as 
a  fresh  proof  of  Mary^s  innocence. 

And,  as  with  the  letters,  so  with  the  sonnets: 
their  delicacy,  their  grace,  their  reticence,  are  so  many 
arguments  against  their  having  been  forged  by  any 
Scot  of  the  sixteenth  century,  and  least  of  all  by  one 
in  whose  character — whatever  his  other  virtues  may 
have  been — delicacy  was  by  no  means  the  strongest 
point. 

As  for  the  complaint  that  Buchanan  was  ungrateful 
to  Mary,  it  must  be  said  :  That  even  if  she,  and  not 
Murray,  had  bestowed  on  him  the  temporalities  of 
Crossraguel  Abbey  four  years  before,  it  was  merely 
fair  pay  for  services  fairly  rendered;  and  I  am  not 
aware  that  payment,  or  even  favours,  however 
gracious,  bind  any  man^s  soul  and  conscience  in 
questions  of  highest  morality  and  highest  public 
importance.  And  the  importance  of  that  question 
cannot  be  exaggerated.  At  a  moment  when  Scot- 
land seemed  struggling  in  death-throes  of  anarchy, 
civil  and  religious,  and  was  in  danger  of  be- 
coming a  prey  either  to  England  or  to  Prance,  if 
there  could  not  be  formed  out  of  the  heart  of  her  a 
people,  steadfast,  trusty,  united,  strong  politically 
because  strong  in  the  fear  of  God  and  the  desire  of 
righteousness — at  such  a  moment  as  this,  a  crime  had 
been  committed,  the  like  of  which  had  not  been  heard 
in  Europe  since  the  tragedy  of  Joan  of  Naples.  All 
Europe  stood  aghast.      The  honour  of  the  Scottish 


.GEOEGE   BUCHANAN,  SCHOLA'E.  393 

nation  was  at  stake.  More  than  Mary  or  Bothwell 
were  known  to  be  implicated  in  the  deed ;  and — as 
Buchanan  puts  it  in  the  opening  of  his  ^^  De  Jure 
Eegni  ^^ — ^^  The  fault  of  some  few  was  charged  upon 
all ;  and  the  common  hatred  of  a  particular  person  did 
redound  to  the  whole  nation  ;  so  that  even  such  as 
were  remote  from  any  suspicion  were  inflamed  by  the 
infamy  of  men^s  crimes/^* 

To  vindicate  the  national  honour^  and  to  punish 
the  guilty,  as  well  as  to  save  themselves  from  utter 
anarchy,  the  great  majority  of  the  Scotch  nation  had 
taken  measures  against  Mary  which  required  explicit 
justification  in  the  sight  of  Europe,  as  Buchanan 
frankly  confesses  in  the  opening  of  his  '^  De  Jure 
Eegni/^  The  chief  authors  of  those  measures  had 
been  summoned,  perhaps  unwisely  and  unjustly,  to 
answer  for  their  conduct  to  the  Queen  of  England. 
Queen  Elizabeth — a  fact  which  was  notorious  enough 
then,  though  it  has  been  forgotten  till  the  last  few  years 
— was  doing  her  utmost  to  shield  Mary.  Buchanan 
was  deputed,  it  seems,  to  speak  out  for  the  people  of 
Scotland;  and  certainly  never  people  had  an  abler 
apologist.  If  he  spoke  fiercely,  savagely,  it  must  be 
remembered  that  he  spoke  of  a  fierce  and  savage 
matter;  if  he  used — and  it  may  be  abused — all  the 
arts  of  oratory,  it  must  be  remembered  that  he  was 
fighting  for  the  honour,  and  it  may  be  for  the  national 
life,  of  his  country,  and  striking — as  men  in  such  cases 
have  a  right  to  strike — as  hard  as  he  could.  If  he 
makes  no  secret  of  his  indignation,  and  even  contempt, 
it  must  be  remembered  that  indignation  and  contempt 
may  well  have  been  real  with  him,  while  they  were 

*  From  the  quaint  old  translation  of  1721,  bj  "A  Person  of 
Honour  of  tlie  Kingdom  of  Scotland." 


394  GEOEGE   BUCHANAN,  SCHOLAE. 

real  witli  tlie  soundest  part  of  liis  countrymen ;  with 
that  reforming  middle  class_,  comparatively  untainted 
by  French  profligacy,  comparatively  undebauched  by 
feudal  subservience,  which  has  been  the  leaven  which 
has  leavened  the  whole  Scottish  people  in  th.e  last 
three  centuries  with  the  elements  of  their  greatness. 
If,  finally,  he  heaps  up  against  the  unhappy  Queen 
charges  which  Mr.  Burton  thinks  incredible,  it  must 
be  remembered  that,  as  he  well  says,  these  charges 
give  the  popular  feeling  about  Queen  Mary;  and  it 
must  be  remembered  also,  that  that  popular  feeling 
need  not  have  been  altogether  unfounded.  Stories 
which  are  incredible,  thank  God,  in  these  milder  days, 
were  credible  enough  then,  because,  alas  !  they  were 
so  often  true.  Things  more  ugly  than  any  related  of 
poor  Mary  were  possible  enough — as  no  one  knew 
better  than  Buchanan — in  that  very  French  court  in 
which  Mary  had  been  brought  up  ;  things  as  ugly 
were  possible  in  Scotland  then,  and  for  at  least  a 
century  later ;  and  while  we  may  hope  that  Buchanan 
has  overstated  his  case,  we  must  not  blame  him  too 
severely  for  yielding  to  a  temptation  common  to  all 
men  of  genius  when  their  creative  power  is  roused  to 
its  highest  energy  by  a  great  cause  and  a  great 
indignation. 

And  that  the  genius  was  there,  no  man  can  doubt ; 
one  cannot  read  that  ^^  hideously  eloquent  ^^  descrip- 
tion of  Kirk  o^  Field,  which  Mr.  Burton  has  well 
chosen  as  a  specimen  of  Buchanan^s  style,  without 
seeing  that  we  are  face  to  face  with  a  genius  of  a  very 
lofty  order  :  not,  indeed,  of  the  loftiest — for  there  is 
always  in  Buchanan^s  work,  it  seems  to  me,  a  want  of 
unconsciousness,  and  a  want  of  tenderness — but  still  a 
genius  worthy  to  be  placed  beside  those  ancient  writers 


GEOEGE   BUCHANAlSr,  SCHOLAE.  395 

from  whom  lie  took  liis  manner:  Whetlier  or  not 
we  agree  with,  his  contemporaries^  who  say  that  he 
equalled  Virgil  in  Latin  poetry,  we  may  place  him 
fairly  as  a  prose  writer  by  the  side  of  Demosthenes^ 
Cicero^  or  Tacitus.  And  so  I  pass  from  this  painful 
subject ;  only  quoting — if  I  may  be  permitted  to  quote 
— Mr.  Burton^s  wise  and  gentle  verdict  on  the  whole. 
^^  Buchanan/^  he  says,  ^^  though  a  zealous  Protestant^ 
had  a  good  deal  of  the  Catholic  and  sceptical  spirit  of 
Erasmus,  and  an  admiring  eye  for  everything  that  was 
great  and  beautiful.  Like  the  rest  of  his  countrymen, 
he  bowed  himself  in  presence  of  the  lustre  that  sur- 
rounded the  early  career  of  his  mistress.  More  than 
once  he  expressed  his  pride  and  reverence  in  the  in- 
spiration of  a  genius  deemed  by  his  contemporaries  to 
be  worthy  of  the  theme.  There  is  not,  perhaps^  to  be 
found  elsewhere  in  literature  so  solemn  a  memorial  of 
shipwrecked  hopes^  of  a  sunny  opening  and  a  stormy 
end^  as  one  finds  in  turning  the  leaves  of  the  volume 
which  contains  the  beautiful  epigram  ^^  Nympha  Cale- 
donige  ^'  in  one  part,  the  "  Detectio  Marias  Reginas  ^^ 
in  another ;  and  this  contrast  is,  no  doubt,  a  faithful 
parallel  of  the  reaction  in  the  popular  mind.  This 
reaction  seems  to  have  been  general,  and  not  limited 
to  the  Protestant  party ;  for  the  conditions  under 
which  it  became  almost  a  part  of  the  creed  of  the 
Church  of  Rome  to  believe  in  her  innocence  had  not 
arisen.''^ 

If  Buchanan,  as  some  of  his  detractors  have 
thought^  raised  himself  by  subserviency  to  the  in- 
trigues of  the  Regent  Murray,  the  best  heads  in 
Scotland  seem  to  have  been  of  a  different  opinion. 
The  murder  of  Murray  did  not  involve  Buchanan^s 
fall.     He  had  avenged  it^  as  far  as  pen  could  do  it, 


396  GEOEGE   BUCHANAN,  SCHOLAE. 

by  that  ^^  Admonition  Direct  to  tlie  Trew  Lordis/^ 
in  which,  he  showed  himself  as  great  a  master  of 
Scottish^  as  he  was  of  Latin  prose.  His  satire  of  the 
^*^  Chameleon/^  though  its  publication  was  stopped  by 
Maitland^  must  have  been  read  in  manuscript  by 
many  of  those  same  "True  Lords /^  and  though 
there  were  nobler  instincts  in  Maitland  than  any 
Buchanan  gave  him  credit  for,,  the  satire  breathed 
an  honest  indignation  against  that  wily  turncoat^s 
misgoings^  which  could  not  but  recommend  the  author 
to  all  honest  men.  Therefore  it  was^  I  presume^ 
and  not  because  he.was  a  rogue^  and  a  hired  literary^ 
spadassin^  that  to  the  best  heads  in  Scotland  be- 
seemed so  useful^  it  may  be  so  worthy^  a  man^  that  he 
be  provided  with  continually  increasing  employment.. 
As  tutgr  to  James  I. ;  as  director,  for  a  short  time,  of 
the  chancery ;  as  keeper  of  the  privy  seal,  and  privy 
councillor ;  as  one  of  the  commissioners  for  codifying 
the  laws,  and  again — for  in  the  semi- anarchic  state  of 
Scotland,  government  had  to  do  everything  in  the  way 
of  organisation — in  the  committee  for  promulgating  a 
standard  Latin  grammar;  in  the  committee  for  re- 
forming the  University  of  St.  Andrew^ s :  in  all  these 
Buchanan's  talents  were  again  and  again  called  for ;. 
and  always  ready.  The  value  of  his  work,  especially 
that  for  the  reform  of  St.  Andrew's,  must  be  judged 
by  Scotsmen,  rather  than  by  an  Englishman ;  but  all 
that  one  knows  of  it  justifies  Melville's  sentence  in 
the  well-known  passage  in  his  memoirs,  wherein  he 
describes  the  tutors  and  household  of  the  young  king. 
^^  Mr.  George  was  a  Stoic  philosopher,  who  looked  not 
far  before  him  ; "  in  plain  words,  a  high-minded  and 
right-minded  man,  bent  on  doing  the  duty  which  lay 
nearest  him.      The  worst  that  can  be  said  against  him 


GEORGE   BUCHANAISr,  SCHOLAE,  397 

during  these  times  is^  tliat  Ms  name  appears  with  the 
sum  of  £100  against  it^  as  one  of  those  ^^  who  were  to  be 
entertained  in  Scotland  by  pensions  out  of  England ;  '^ 
and  Ruddiman,  of  course,  comments  on  the  fact  by 
saying  that  Buchanan  ^^  was  at  length  to  act  under 
the  threefold  character  of  malcontent,  reformer,  and 
pensioner : ''  but  it  gives  no  proof  whatsoever  that 
Buchanan  ever  received  any  such  bribe ;  and  in  the 
very  month,  seemingly,  in  which  that  list  was  written 
— 10th  March,  1579 — Buchanan  had  given  a  proof  to 
the  world  that  he  was  not  likely  to  be  bribed  or  bought, 
hj  publishing  a  book,  as  offensive  probably  to  Queen 
Elizabeth  as  it  was  to  his  own  royal  pupil ;  namely,  his 
famous  "  De  Jure  Regni  apud  Scotos,^^  the  very  primer, 
according  to  many  great  thinkers,  of  constitutional 
liberty.  He  dedicates  that  book  to  King  Jameg,  ^^  not 
only  as  his  monitor,  but  also  as  an  importunate  and  bold 
exactor,  which  in  these  his  tender  and  flexible  years 
may  conduct  him  in  safety  past  the  rocks  of  flattery/^ 
He  has  complimented  James  already  on  his  abhorrence 
of  flattery,  ^^his  inclination  far  above  his  years  for 
undertaking  all  heroical  and  noble  attempts,  his  promp- 
titude in  obeying  his  instructors  and  governors,  and 
all  who  give  him  sound  admonition,  and  his  judgment 
and  diligence  in  examining  affairs,  so  that  no  man^s 
authority  can  have  much  weight  with  him  unless  it  be 
confirmed  by  probable  I'easons/^  Buchanan  may  have 
thought  that  nine  years  of  his  stern  rule  had  eradicated 
some  of  Jameses  ill  conditions ;  the  petulance  which 
made  him  kill  the  Master  of  Mar^s  sparrow,  in  trying 
to  wrest  it  out  of  his  hand ;  the  carelessness  with  which 
— if  the  story  told  by  Ohytraeus,  on  the  authority  of 
Buchanan^s  nephew,  be  true — James  signed  away  his 
crown  to  Buchanan  for  fifteen  days,  and  only  discovered 


398         GEORGE  BUCHANAN,  SCHOLAR. 

his  mistake  by  seeing  Bucliaiian  act  in  open  court 
the  character  of  Kinor  of  Scots.  Bachanan  had  at  last 
made  him  a  scholar ;  he  may  have  fancied  that  he  had 
made  him  likewise  a  manful  man :  yet  he  may  have . 
dreaded  that,,  as  James  grew  up^  the  old  inclinations 
would  return  in  stronger  and  uglier  shapes^  and  that 
flattery  might  be^  as  it  was  after  all^  the  cause  of 
Jameses  moral  ruin.  He  at  least  will  be  no  flatterer. 
He  opens  the  dialogue  which  he  sends  to  the  king, 
with  a  calm  but  distinct  assertion  of  his  mother's 
guilt,  and  a  justification  of  the  conduct  of  men  who 
were  now  most  of  them  past  helping  Buchanan,  for 
they  were  laid  in  their  graves ;  and  then  goes  on  to 
argue  fairly,  but  to  lay  down  firmly,  in  a  sort  of 
Socratic  dialogue,  those  very  principles  by  loyalty  to 
which  the  House  of  Hanover  has  reigned,  and  will 
reign,  over  these  realms.  So  with  his  History  of 
Scotland ;  later  antiquarian  researches  have  destroyed 
the  value  of  the  earlier  portions  of  it :  but  they  have 
surely  increased  the  value  of  those  later  portions,  in 
which  Buchanan  inserted  so  much  which  he  had 
already  spoken  out  in  his  Detection  of  Mary.  In  that 
book  also  liheravit  animam  suam  ;  he  spoke  his  mind 
fearless  of  consequences,  in  the  face  of  a  king  who 
he  must  have  known — for  Buchanan  was  no  dullard — ■ 
regarded  him  with  deep  dislike,  who  might  in  a  few 
years  be  able  to  work  his  ruin. 

But  those  few  years  were  not  given  to  Buchanan. 
He  had  all  but  done  his  work,  and  he  hastened  to  get 
it  over  before  the  night  should  come  wherein  no  man  can 
work.  One  must  be  excused  for  telling — one  would 
not  tell  it  in  a  book  intended  to  be  read  only  by 
Scotsmen,  who  know  or  ought  to  know  the  tale  already 
— how    the  two   Melville s   and    Buchanan^ s    nephew 


GEOEGE  BUCHANAN,  SCHOLAR.         399 

Thomas  went  to  see  Mm  in  Edinburgh.^  in  September, 
1581,  bearing  that  be  was  ill,  and  bis  History  still  in 
tbe  press ;  and  bow  tbey  found  tbe  old  sage,  true  to 
bis  scboolmaster^s  instincts,  teacbing  tbe  Hornbook 
to  bis  servant-lad  ;  and  bow  be  told,  tbem  tbat  doing 
tbat  was  ^^  better  tban  stealing  sbeep,  or  sitting  idle, 
wbicb  was  as  bad,^^  and  sbowed  tbem  tbat  dedication 
to  James  I.,  in  wbicb  be  bolds  up  to  bis  imitation  as 
a  bero  wbose  equal  was  bardly  to  be  found  in  bistory, 
tbat  very  King  David  wbose  liberality  to  tbe  Romisb 
Cburcb  provoked  James's  witticism  tbat  ^^  David  was  a 
sair  saint  for  tbe  crown. ''^  Andrew  Melville,  so  James 
Melville  says,  found  fault  witb  tbe  style.  Bucbanan 
replied  tbat  be  could  do  no  more  for  tbinking  of 
anotber  tbing,  wbicb  was  to  die.  Tbey  tben  went  to 
Arbutbnot^s  printing-bouse,  and  inspected  tbe  bistory, 
as  far  as  tbat  terrible  passage  concerning  Rizzio^s 
burial,  wbere  Mary  is  represented  as  ^^  laying  tbe 
miscreant  almost  in  tbe  arms  of  Maud  de  Valois,  tbe 
late  queen/"*  Alarmed,  and  not  witbout  reason,  at 
sucb  plain  speaking,  tbey  stopped  tbe  press,  and  went 
back  to  Bucbanan^s  bouse.  Bucbanan  was  in  bed. 
^'He  was  going,^^  be  said,  ^Hbe  way  of  welfare.''^ 
Tbey  asked  bim  to  soften  tbe  passage ;  tbe  king 
migbt  probibit  tbe  wbole  work.  "  Tell  me,  man,^^  said 
Bucbanan,  ^'  if  I  bave  told  tbe  trutb.''^  Tbey  could 
not,  or  would  not_,  deny  it.  ^^  Tben  I  will  abide  bis 
feud,  and  all  bis  kin^s ;  pray,  pray  to  God  for  me,  and 
let  Him  direct  all.''  "  So,''  says  Melville,  "  before  tbe 
printing  of  bis  cbronicle  was  ended,  tbis  most  learned, 
wise,  and  godly  man  ended  bis  mortal  life." 

Camden  bas  a  bearsay  story — written,  it  must  be 
remembered,  in  James  I.'s  time — tbat  Bucbanan,  on 
bis  deatb-bed,  repented  of   bis  barsb  words  against 


400  GEORGE   BUCHANAjST,  SCHOLAR. 

Queen  Mary ;  and  an  old  Lady  Rosytli  is  said  to  have 
said  that  when  slie  was  young  a  certain  David  Buchanan 
recollected  hearing  some  such  words  from  George 
Buchanan^s  own  mouth.  Those  who  will,  may  read 
what  Ruddiman  and  Love  have  said,  and  oversaid,  on 
both  sides  of  the  question  :  whatever  conclusion  they 
come  to,  it  will  probably  not  be  that  to  which  George 
Chalmers  comes  in  his  life  of  Ruddiman:  that  ^^ Bu- 
chanan, like  other  liars,  who,  by  the  repetition  of  false- 
hoods are  induced  to  consider  the  fiction  as  truth,  had 
so  often  dwelt  with  complacency  on  the  forgeries  of 
his  Detections,  and  the  figments  of  his  History,  that 
he  at  length  regarded  his  fictions  and  his  forgeries  as 
most  authentic  facts /^ 

At  all  events  his  fictions  and  his  forgeries  had  not 
paid  him  in  that  coin  which  base  men  generally  con- 
sider the  only  coin  worth  having,  namely,  the  good 
things  of  this  life.  He  left  nothing  behind  him — if  at 
least  Dr.  Irving  has  rightly  construed  the  ^^  Testament 
Dative  ^^  which  he  gives  in  his  appendix — save  arrears 
to  the  sum  of  £100  of  his  Crossraguel  pension.  We 
may  believe  as  we  choose  the  story  in  Mackenzie's 
''  Scotch  Writers,^'  that  when  he  felt  himself  dying, 
he  asked  his  servant  Young  about  the  state  of  his 
funds,  and  finding  he  had  not  enough  to  bury  himself 
withal,  ordered  what  he  had  to  be  given  to  the  poor, 
and  said  that  if  they  did  not  choose  to  bury  hiui  they 
might  let  him  lie  where  he  was,  or  cast  him  in  a  ditch, 
the  matter  was  very  little  to  him.  He  was  buried,  it 
seems,  at  the  expense  of  the  city  of  Edinburgh,  in  the 
Greyfriars'  Churchyard — one  says  in  a  plain  turf 
grave — among  the  marble  monuments  which  covered 
the  bones  of  worse  or  meaner  men ;  and  whether  or 
not  the   ^^  Throughstone  '^   which,    ^^  sunk   under    the 


GEORGE   BUCHANAN,  SCHOLAR.  401 

ground  in  the  Greyfriars/^  was  raised  and  cleaned  by 
tlie  Council  of  Edinburgh,  in  1701^  was  really  George 
Buchanan^ s^  the  reigning  powers  troubled  themselves 
little  for  several  generations  where  he  lay. 

For  Buchanan's  politics  were  too  advanced  for  his 
age.  Not  only  Catholic  Scotsmen^  like  Blackwood, 
Winzet,  and  Ninian^  but  Protestants,  like  Sir  Thomas 
Craig  and  Sir  John  Wemyss,  could  not  stomach  the 
"  De  Jure  Eegni."  They  may  have  had  some  reason 
on  their  side.  In  the  then  anarchic  state  of  Scotland, 
organisation  and  unity  under  a  common  head  may 
have  been  more  important  than  the  assertion  of  popular 
rights.  Be  that  as  it  may,  in  1584,  only  two  years 
after  his  death,  the  Scots  Parliament  condemned  his 
Dialogue  and  History  as  untrue,  and  commanded  all 
possessors  of  copies  to  deliver  them  up,  that  they 
might  be  purged  of  "  the  offensive  and  extraordinary 
matters  ^'  which  they  contained.  The  '^  De  Jure 
Eegni^^  was  again  prohibited  in  Scotland,  in  1664, 
even  in  manuscript ;  and  in  1683,  the  whole  of 
Buchanan^s  political  works  had  the  honour  of  being 
burned  by  the  University  of  Oxford,  in  company  with 
those  of  Milton,  Languet,  and  others,  as  "  pernicious 
books,  and  damnable  doctrines,  destructive  to  the 
"Sacred  persons  of  Princes,  their  state  and  government, 
and  of  all  human  society.^"'  And  thus  the  seed  which 
Buchanan  had  sown,  and  Milton  had  watered — for  the 
allegation  that  Milton  borrowed  from  Buchanan  is 
probably  true,  and  equally  honourable  to  both — lay 
trampled  into  the  earth,  and  seemingly  lifeless,  till  it 
tillered  out,  and  blossomed,  and  bore  fruit  to  a  good 
purpose,  in  the  Eevolution  of  1688. 

To  Buchanan^s  clear  head  and  stout  heart,  Scotland 
owes,  as  England  owes  likewise,  much  of  her  modern 
VOL.  I. — H.  E.  2d 


402  GEORGE  BUCHANAN,  SCHOLAR. 

liberty*.  But  Scotland's  debt  to  him,  it  seems  to  me, 
is  even  greater  on  the  count  of  morality,  public  and 
private.  What  the  morality  of  the  Scotch  upper 
classes  was  like,  in  Buchanan's  early  days,  is  too 
notorious;  and  there  remains  proof  enough — in  the 
writings,  for  instance,  of  Sir  David  Lindsay — that  the 
morality  of  the  populace,  which  looked  up  to  the  nobles 
as  Its  example  and  its  guide,  was  not  a  whit  better. 
As  anarchy  increased,  immorality  was  likely  to  in- 
crease likewise;  and  Scotland  was  in  serious  danger 
of  falling  into  such  a  state  as  that  into  which  Poland 
fell,  to  its  ruin,  within  a  hundred  and  fifty  years 
after ;  in  which  the  savagery  of  feudalism,  without  its 
order  or  its  chivalry,  would  be  varnished  over  by 
a  thin  coating  of  French  "  civilisation,''  and,  as 
in  the  case  of  Bothwell,  the  vices  of  the  court  of 
Paris  should  be  added  to  those  of  the  Northern 
freebooter.  To  deliver  Scotland  from  that  ruin, 
it  was  needed  that  she  should  be  united  into 
one  people,  strong,  not  in  mere  political,  but  in 
moral  ideas ;  strong  by  the  clear  sense  of  right  and 
wrong,  by  the  belief  in  the  government  and  the  judg- 
ments of  a  living  God.  And  the  tone  which  Buchanan, 
like  Knox,  adopted  concerning  the  great  crimes  of 
their  day,  helped  notably  that  national  salvation. 
It  gathered  together,  organised,  strengthened,  the 
scattered  and  wavering  elements  of  public  morality. 
It  assured  the  hearts  of  all  men  who  loved  the  right 
and  hated  the  wrong ;  and  taught  a  whole  nation  to 
call  acts  by  their  just  names,  whoever  might  be  the 
doers  of  them.  It  appealed  to  the  common  conscience 
of  men.  It  proclaimed  a  universal  and  God-given 
morality,  a  bar  at  which  all,  from  the  lowest  to  the 
highest,  must  alike  be  judged. 


GEORGE  BUCHANA:N',  SCHOLAR.  403 

The  tone  was  stern  :  but  there  was  need  of  stern- 
ness. Moral  life  and  death  were  in  the  balance.  If 
the  Scots  people  were  to  be  told  that  the  crimes  which 
roused  their  indignation  were  excusable^  or  beyond 
punishment^  or  to  be  hushed  up  and  slipped  over  in 
any  way,  there  was  an  end  of  morality  among  them. 
Every  man,  from  the  greatest  to  the  least,  would  go 
and  do  likewise,  according  to  his  powers  of  evil.  That 
method  was  being  tried  in  Prance,  and  in  Spain  like- 
wise, during  those  very  years.  Notorious  crimes  were 
hushed  up  under  pretence  of  loyalty;  excused  as 
political  necessities ;  smiled  away  as  natural  and 
pardonable  weaknesses.  The  result  was  the  utter 
demoralisation,  both  of  France  and  Spain.  Knox  and 
Buchanan,  the  one  from  the  standpoint  of  an  old 
Hebrew  prophet,  the  other  rather  from  that  of  a 
Juvenal  or  a  Tacitus,  tried  the  other  method,  and 
called  acts  by  their  just  names,  appealing  alike  to 
conscience  and  to  God.  The  result  was  virtue  and 
piety,  and  that  manly  independence  of  soul  which  is 
thought  compatible  with  hearty  loyalty,  in  a  country 
labouring  under  heavy  disadvantages,  long  divided 
almost  into  two  hostile  camps,  two  rival  races. 

And  the  good  influence  was  soon  manifest,  not  only 
in  those  who  sided  with  Buchanan  and  his  friends,  but 
in  those  who  most  opposed  them.  The  E-oman  Catholic 
preachers, who  at  first  asserted  Mary^s  right  to  impunity, 
while  they  allowed  her  guilt,  grew  silent  for  shame^ 
and  set  themselves  to  assert  her  entire  innocence; 
while  the  Scots  who  have  followed  their  example  have, 
to  their  honour,  taken  up  the  same  ground.  They 
have  fought  Buchanan  on  the  ground  of  fact,  not  on 
the  ground  of  morality :  they  have  alleged — as  they 
had  a  fair  right  to  do — the  probability  of  intrigue  and 


404  ^EOEGE   BUCHANAN,  SCHOLAR. 

forgery  in  an  age  so  profligate  :  tlie  improbability  that 
a  Queen  so  gifted  by  nature  and  by  fortune^  and  con- 
fessedly for  a  long  while  so  strong  and  so  spotless, 
should  as  it  were  by  a  sudden  insanity  have  proved  so 
untrue  to  herself.  Their  noblest  and  purest  sympathies 
have  been  enlisted — and  who  can  blame  them  ? — in 
loyalty  to  a  Queen,  chivalry  to  a  woman,  pity  for  the 
unfortunate  and — as  they  conceived — the  innocent; 
but  whether  they  have  been  right  or  wrong  in  their 
view  of  facts,  the  Scotch  partisans  of  Mary  have  always 
— as  far  as  I  know — been  right  in  their  view  of  morals ; 
they  have  never  deigned  to  admit  Mary^s  guilt,  and 
then  to  palliate  it  by  those  sentimental,  or  rather 
sensual,  theories  of  human  nature,  too  common  in  a 
certain  school  of  French  literature,  too  common,  alas !  in 
a  certain  school  of  modern  English  novels.  They  have 
not  said,  ^^  She  did  it ;  but  after  all,  was  the  deed  so 
very  inexcusable  ?  ^^  They  have  said,  ^^  The  deed  was 
inexcusable  :  but  she  did  not  do  it."*^  And  so  the  Scotch 
admirers  of  Mary,  who  have  numbered  among  them 
many  a  pure  and  noble,  as  well  as  many  a  gifted  spirit, 
have  kept  at  least  themselves  unstained ;  and  have 
shown,  whether  consciously  or  not,  that  they  too  share 
in  that  sturdy  Scotch  moral  sense  which  has  been  so 
much  strengthened — as  I  believe — by  the  plain  speech 
of  good  old  George  Buchanan. 


END    OF    VOL.    I. 


CHAELES  DICKENS  AND   EVANS,    CEYSTAL   PALACE  PKESS. 


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